Linda's Coffee Notes

2006-03-16T06:52:00.000-06:00

I haven't written anything on this site since January ... is that pathetic or what! I evidently go through seasons of sort wherein I work on my websites and other seasons where I find absolutely no motivation to mess around with them at all. My Keep Nepal Free website has been horribly neglected by me. I got this email describable as arrogant from someone stating that there is no comparison between what is happening in Nepal to what happened with the communist take over in Tibet ... I concluded it was written by a communist. Granted you don't see the Chinese army over running Nepal, but you do see a real ongoing attempt to force communism down the throats of those in Nepal. I got another email from someone who does live in Nepal complimenting me on this Nepal news blog and urged me to continue making posts ... so I have once again began trying to keep the Nepal news current.

And spring is trying to spring even though the temperatures are now once again cold ... at least by the middle of March one realizes that winter is now behind ... as I have frequently said, I can now make another "winter count" - meaning I have lived through another Nebraska winter ... actually an accomplishment.

2006-01-22T07:23:00.000-06:00

It's been awhile since I've sat and actually written something in my Coffee Notes blog! But then, it has also been some time since I've really got into posting any photographs on my other sites or working on any writings. I have been busy attempting to learn Hebrew ... a real undertaking for someone like myself who is now pushing 56 ... learning a new language! Studies reveal that an old rat's brain actually increases in size with learning ... so, as an old rat, maybe I'm attempting to increase my brain size or perhaps accommodate for the small strokes which I can tell have left my brain with some real disruption in normal cranial processing. There are parts of my memory that I know once used to be connected and now seem to be out there somewhere but I can seem to hook it into my consciousness ... like knowing I know yet not being able to grasp it whether it be a name or a past situation, etc. Frustrating at times ... plus, I feel as if my concentration has also been affected. At any rate, it has left me quite contented on a whole ... think I'm missing those old memories that used to be mainly annoying memories anyway!! I do feel quite at peace any more. Am enjoying my decision to began practicing Judaism. The synagogue is actually the first place I've ever felt like I can actually worship the Creator without personalities butting into the picture as was the case in Christianity that seems to focus on "me, me, me". The 'ol concern about getting the personality to heaven ... decided being a follower of Paul-Saul was not my bag since he's the guy responsible for most of the "New" testament. I honestly can say I believe that Jesus of Nazareth DID NOT want a whole new religious system built about him!! Jesus was a Jew and do believe that is the way I am going to be walking the rest of my walking days. I do believe ... as the Jews that the soul is pure ... this whole original sin of Adam and Eve is the doctrine of Christianity, not Judaism.

So be it.

2006-01-05T07:47:00.000-06:00

Recluse-and when you look up that word in images all you seem to find are pictures of recluse spiders ... hum. Do believe reclusive is more accurate to how I feel during the cold months than is the word hibernation which usually only provides one with images of sleeping, rather than the finer meaning having to do with how bears actually give birth frequently during their hibernation and providing one with the similarity to how we give birth to "new ideas" during the time we as humans seek a hibernation period.

I have spent too much of lifetime being way too busy and active .... much like the treadmill where one really has to question where all their outpouring of energy has really taken them. The 'ol leaving at "point A" and arriving at the same place you started rather than at a new and different location. Sometimes I truly believe that the cavemen had it easier when it came to providing for their food, shelter and water than I have had in this age of technology when one needs money to exchange for shelter, food, and running water ... not alot of free caves, berries or fresh water available without the greenbacks. Plus we end up being so isolated from the natural world which essentially feeds our souls ... concrete doesn't really do a good job of feeding one's eternal soul!

Plus how does one really ingest a true feeling of reverence and awe at one's actual place in the cosmos without actually viewing the night sky and the millions of stars? Personal egos ... that which seems to flow from having a brain in one's skull ... seems to like to live in the delusion that we are the center of the universe! It continues to amaze me how humans like to define "intelligence" by human standards .... Divine Intelligence definitely saturates even the cosmos that we view with our central nervous system via our optic nerve. Ah ... miraculous is this Universe. As Einstein spoke either one sees everything as a miracle or no miracles and he chose to see a "Miraculous Universe" ... there is alot to be said for Einstein!

2005-12-28T07:18:00.000-06:00

My curiosity is getting to me ... who is the person on Roadrunner from Lincoln that always visits my sites? Just leave a message or email me at bunik@yahoo.com. Thanks!! Linda

Have been busy working on my latest study site ... take a look:

My Gateway to Jewish Study

2005-12-12T06:21:00.000-06:00

The process of self-discovery involves asking a series of questions, always probing deeper until the underlying truth emerges. Ask yourself 10 questions that you would ask an intimate friend. Then wait for answers. Don't worry, no one is going to poke fun at you.

1. What is the purpose of life?
2. What is my goal in life?
3. Why did I choose this career?
4. How do I spend my spare time?
5. What is my motivation for doing what I do?
6. What really makes me happy?
7. Am I as happy as I want to be?
8. Is it more important to be rich or to be happy?
9. What are my future plans? Why?
10. What are my secret dreams and ambitions?

Don't be surprised if the answers aren't immediate. This process can take many months. Stick with it and find out what makes you tick. The answers are hiding in there. After all, you have a fascinating partner.

Finally, the most important question to ask is:

"What am I living for?"

It sounds like a simple question, but many are embarrassed to ask it. A voice inside us says, "Nah, why ask such a basic question?" We're resistant because we know this requires a lot of difficult soul-searching. And when you thoroughly know yourself, then you have changed. You've changed your relationship with yourself and the world.

10 Most Important Things I've Learned So Far

2005-12-10T08:23:00.000-06:00

This morning I made a list of the 10 most important things I’ve learned in life:

1. Choose Divine Authorities to lead your life, not human authorities

2. Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, and always hopes, always preservers. I Corinthians 13:4-7

3. Childhood is such a brief time period and adolescence is the time a person should learn self-accountability and cease the childishness of shaming and blaming others for decisions you act upon.

4. Self-pity and anger is only an ocean you can drown within. I cannot make unhappy people happy and likewise other people cannot make me happy when I have chosen to wade around in self-pity and anger.

5. “To know your self” essentially means to identify the fear-stimuli that activates your own flight-fight mechanism.

6. Never forget real gratitude for air, water, food and shelter and recognize real needs from self-absorbed wants.

7. Family with their multiplicities of shortcomings will be the people that remain after friends and others come and go. There exists a mystical soul attachment to family members with deep soul lessons for all those involved.

8. All we really have is today, yesterday is but a memory and tomorrow is a fantasy. There is such wisdom is the Buddhist-like remembrance that by evening you may find yourself in a morgue and not live as a sleepwalker lost in either memories or fantasies and not remain conscious of the precious gift of now.

9. Our time and energy are our most precious gifts and how we choose to use them will determine our spiritual evolution in this particular lifetime.

10. Don’t wait until your Life-Review after physical death to experience remorse and loose the opportunity to exhibit real change of heart and glean the wisdom from past mistakes and wrong choices.

Tibetan Buddhism

2005-12-09T09:36:00.000-06:00

'Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in the cosmic religion for the future: It trancends a personal God, avoids dogma and theology; it covers both the natural and the spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.'

—Albert Einstein

2005-11-12T05:05:00.000-06:00

Normal is just a setting on the washing machine

2005-11-11T08:48:00.000-06:00

Have been trying to figure out why I have been loosing interest recently in working on all my websites that I have generated. Perhaps it is the weather? I haven't even used my camera in weeks and that is not my usual behavior either. This past week I have actually been sleeping 8 hours or more each night ... maybe that is it? I have actual energy to focus on doing other things than sitting at my computer perhaps?

I broke down and actually bought myself something other than just food, gasoline for my car, etc. I went to Wal-Mart and purchased a really nifty little light-weight Bissell carpet steamer.
It was synchronicity when I was standing in line at Wal-Mart to pay for this little sweetie that behind me was an older woman ALSO buying the same little carpet cleaner. We started to visit and she told me that her friend had given such very high reviews of hers that she had to go out and buy one for herself. This little guy is lighter weight than my vacuum and was actually pretty cheap. I have used both Mr. Clean and CloroxII in it and both works very well. Jeb will be using it and it is simple enough for him!

So have been maybe busy with my proverbial "Fall Housecleaning" and that's why I'm neglecting updating my many, many websites.

2005-11-08T06:06:00.000-06:00

It has now been over a dozen years since I last decided to escape my life by ingesting alcohol. Think the last person that stated that they were impressed with this feat was my neurologist. I looked at the calendar this morning and it hit me that my recovery birthday and has come and gone this year without my acknowledging it. For the last week I've been saying that I needed to get some coffee beans and grind myself from fresh coffee and buy some half and half. Maybe the reason being was to celebrate another year of sobriety?

I'm chuckling as I look at my livingroom floor. There are puppy toys from one end to the other ... I neglected to put them back in Yoshi's toybox before I went to bed last night. At least if a buglar broke into my apartment he would probably be stepping on squeeker toys as they walked across the room! Writing the last sentence brought the thought that it would be odd to think of a female breaking into my apartment as a burglar ... one really doesn't hear alot about women sneaking around at night and coming through people's windows or breaking in doors ... or for that matter being "peeking toms".

The above thought about female buglars seems to be my primary profound thought for the morning. I almost feel as if I've had another small stroke or something ... been feeling really strange the last couple of days. My motor skills seem alright, however. Ah who knows, maybe it's just the natural deteroriating of my brain by means of aging?

2005-11-04T07:27:00.000-06:00

Another Friday morning and the sounds of the garbage guy in the alley. For living in an urban area, it is very quiet in my apartment. The apartment above me has cement in it's floor and the wall between my apartment and the one next to me is separated by cinder blocks. This 6-plex brick apartment building was actually constructed quite well as far as sound insulation. However the real gap under my door is going to be fixed by me ... will visit some hardware place and check out some options of ridding myself of the daylight under my door. My bunnies will be upset because in the winter they love to lie by the door where the draft comes in and it is cool. With the price of gas, I am maybe becoming more energy conscious!

It is very pleasant to be no longer be stressed out about my father and his bad mouth. The wounded child within required my conscious acknowledgement again. My father is now interrelating with my adult self versus my child self and it's interesting to perceive how he now is more careful about what he says due to the changes in my response to his words. It is so easy, even at age 55 to slip back into the child-parent interrelationship versus an interrelationship from the stance of adult-adult. I have to chuckle that since I've ceased relating to him in my wounded little girl mode, he has now told my daughter he "thinks I'm depressed ... there is something wrong with me".

I really do not feel very profound this morning. My most profound thought has to do with ridding my front door of the huge gap between it and the threshold ... a kind of cold air duct actually. I am intending to visit the hardware center and see what creative way there is to stop cold air from coming in under one's door. I am aware of my bunnies really liking to lay by the door and suck in the cold air ... they definitely prefer the cold to warmth. Their personal little winter air-conditioner is going to come to an end pretty soon. They have what I call their "wind tunnel" to lay in ... the bottom of a bookcase wherein I have placed an air purifying machine that sucks in their shedded fur into the filter I have to frequently clean and blowing out fresh air that hits the shelf above ... thus creating a very windy bottom shelf with the fan blowing constantly. My bunnies laying in front of the air filter machine has really helped in decreasing the amount of shedded fur that I once was vacuuming up ... I now merely clean the filter on the machine. The bunnies love their wind tunnel and it definitely cuts down the hair I have to clean up! But they will be shortly loosing the cold-air-gap they once enjoyed under the front door! I tried folding a rug to stop the cold air from coming in, but the little bunnies only quickly push the rug away from the door ... it was like this game I was playing with them and Snuggles would even pull the rug half way across the room (she likes to pull things around).

I do believe that I cannot stay in denial that winter is on it's way given it is now November. Getting my car ready for winter demands that I get around to having the switch on my windshield wipers fixed ... pulling the wiper fuse in and out is a crappy way of turning one's wipers on and off. This method works, but is definitely not a really handy method of turning one's windshield wipers on and off!

My profound thoughts are definitely in some void this morning. Winterization and my grocery list seem to be the primary thought forms dancing about in my arena of consciousness this morning. I even spent two hour on the telephone last night listening to my auntie (my dad's sister) talk on and on and on and I didn't give her a chance to push any of my buttons. Drinking my morning coffee seems to only motivate me to get some tasks finished today.

2005-11-02T08:08:00.000-06:00

This morning as I sat with my morning cup of coffee, the thought as to whether or not my life is "fullfilling" happened through my consciousness.

fulÂ·fill also fulÂ·fil (fʊl-fĭl')
tr.v., -filled, -fillÂ·ing, -fills also -fils.

To bring into actuality; effect: fulfilled their promises.
To carry out (an order, for example).
To measure up to; satisfy. See synonyms at perform, satisfy.
To bring to an end; complete.

[Middle English fulfillen, from Old English fullfyllan : full, full; see full¹ + fyllan, to fill; see fill.]

Does "my life" measure up and satisfy me? I do believe that my life DOES measure up and satisfies me.

My proverbial litmus paper test is to ask myself whether or not I would be pleased with my life if I should happen to be taken from my body today. Or as the Native Americans might say, "Is it a good day to die?".

I hold no false expectations that anyone else would ever view my life as one that "should" bring fullfillment given my bank account, the car that I drive and the place that I call home. I would be VERY hard pressed to actually attempt to put into words the massive amount of lessons that I have learned in this lifetime. Upon contemplation of some of the biggest lessons of this lifetime of mine, maybe they would have to do with those of learning to be "loyal to self".

I definitely spent way too much of my time and energy attempting to please people who would be easily describable as unhappy people ... learning lessons that you cannot make unhappy people happy, i.e., parents, husbands, etc. It really does take very little focus of attention to perceive whether someone is actually seeking to experience "peace of mind" or whether they are seeking reasons, excuses and justifications for staying in their unhappiness. I have discovered that HAPPY is one of those tricky little words that really deserve to be looked at and scrutinized closely.

Our society is blantantly one on a quest for experiencing fixes ... highs so to speak. Whether one over-eats, over-drinks, over-uses, over-buys, over-works it still displays a path of seeking a momentary fix ... maybe describable as the seeking of instanteous gratification of self-centered desires. That desire might be the pleasure of feeling powerful and in control or it maybe just the desire to escape into the pleasure of a chocolate sunday.

The journeys we each may take in our attempts to avoid the experiences of pain.

I am definitely no stranger to the "frying pan-fire syndrome", a syndrome I have come up with that frequently is very descriptive of most addictive behaviors ... whether the addiction is to unhealthy involvements with people or work situations or addiction to a substance that chemically alters one's consciousness.

Perhaps it is was my decision to recognize what my "frying pan" was - that has enabled me to now not to be playing the continual dramas of leap-frog between the frying pan and fire. My personal frying pan in this lifetime of mine being: an inner need to prove myself worthy and with value to those close to me. "To those close to me" being the keywords.

It is amazing to view how we seek out and find people in our adulthood that resemble important people in our lives as children whether that be a parent, sibling, etc. For a woman that frequently is seen in how we so often marry men that resemble the way our fathers were involved with us as little girls. You don't very often see a woman who was raised by a father who showed her respect and made her feel like a valuable person find attraction to a man who at his core disrespects and holds little value for females, i.e., an abusive male. Men that essentially perceive females in the manner of personal property are such professionals in manipulating and charming women ... the bait on the hook that hooks women into domestic abuse whether physical or emotional and mental (and spiritual). In the beginning of the involvement with an abusive male the woman essentially feels like "valuable property" of the male, however, she can quickly become "worthless property" and then continually seeks to once again experience being valuable in that man's eyes. The cycle of abuse and that short little honeymoon that brings you back with the abusive male.

The sad part is that leaving that abusive man will only enable the female to find another one, and an another, etc., until she really stops and allows herself to experience the pain she felt as a little girl and consciously acknowledges what may be called the "hole in the soul". Frequently the only way to enable a woman to cease her involvement with abusive males is for her to become really aware of the damage her behavior is reaking on her children ... what I personally term as turning the mother tiger on. Essentially the movement of the woman from the child to the mother phase of female development ... the child phase can be a "wounded child phase". Too frequently the woman may live to be in her 70's and still be stuck in the wounded child phase just as the abusive male in his 70's is likewise stuck in his own wounded child phase never having progressed and owning the abilities needed in parenting.

Maybe because a woman is stuck in her wounded child phase that she attempts to mother grown adult males and makes excuses, justifications, rationalizations, etc. for their immature and hurtful and totally self-centered behavior. Women are to mother children NOT grown men. Our culture is in desparate need of women teachers on the subject of weaning children and mothering when mothering should have long ended.

2005-11-01T06:06:00.000-06:00

November 1st, it's hard to believe how swiftly the calendar pages keep turning.

It has been my routine for many years to perceive what made that day "meaningful" before I fall asleep at night. I have also asked myself and others to attempt to describe what would be the significant events of this lifetime if you were doing a past-life regression in a future life. Probably an activity finding similarity to coming up with what could be written about you on your tombstone.

Introspection is an activity requiring a greater amount of focus and attention than just allowing your senses to function instinctually outwards, i.e., it being easier to see what a mess your neighbor's house is in - contrasting to seeing how messed up your own thinking is.

As I fall asleep painting meaning upon the day that is ending, likewise when I awaken I attempt to bring into my consciousness the thought that perhaps by the evening I could be in the morgue. Then I frequently find myself chuckling at the thought of what my children would do with my many little creatures that I share my "den" with and how they would try to catch my little chinchillas, the experts at not being caught.

Chinchillas are originally from the South American countries of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru and live in the high altitudes of the Andes Mountains. They were brought to the United States in 1918. M.F. Chapman was on a working trip to Chile and saw his first chinchilla. He gathered a part of 20 men with him and they went to work catching as many of these creatures as possible. But they were near extinction at the time because of excessive trapping for their pelts. They caught 11 Chinchillas over 3 years. It took 12 months to bring these down the mountains of Chile and all of them survived the temperature changes. By the mid 60's there were thousands of chins in the United States and Canada.

Since the time I moved into my "garden level" apartment in late August of 2003, I have referred to it as "my cave" given it is partially underground. It was in about 1994 that I decided I would like to live in an earth lodge such as the Native Americans once constructed. Such earth lodge would be insulation from both the heat and the cold with a fire pit in the center. I used to say that if I lived in one of those at the time of my death it could just be bulldozed under and it could also function as my grave. Our culture definitely displays some kind of "nobility obsession" in that a person's intristic worth in our society is based upon the place in which they sleep. A child born in a "ghetto" being taught to be a kind of liability to society (versus an asset) in contrast to the child born into a house as an urban suburbanite with a mailing address on a cul-de-sac.

Etymology: THRONE c.1240, from O.Fr. trone (12c.), from L. thronus, from Gk. thronos "elevated seat, chair, throne," from PIE base *dher- "to hold firmly, support" (cf. L. firmus "firm, steadfast, strong, stable," Skt. dharma "statute, law;"

The Greeks culture prior to the ancient Roman Empire brought forth our word throne, a concept of elevating the human off the ground. Maybe obessity would be less a problem in our American culture if we all sat upon the ground and had to get up and down from that squatting position versus plunking ourselves down in comfortable chairs.

Civilized, citizen, civilization contrasting with barbaric and barbarians and the hierarchy of citizens-slaves; nobility-surfs; conquorers-conquered, etc. is so very ancient and follows the path of humans. Perhaps it was when the humans ceased to be nomatic and created city-states with the ownership of real estate to build a castle upon that western civilization attempted to elevate themselves as terrestrial gods? And then I do like being able to walk to the sink and turn the facet for hot and cold water ... playing games of being civilized brings with it advantages.

It is November 1st as calculated in our culture. I do enjoy and find much entertainment from etymology or the history of words. Calendar is a word finding ancient roots growing in the soil of debts and debtors ... those with wealth and those without:

Etymology: Calendar
Middle English calender, from Old French calendier, from Late Latin kalendārium, from Latin, account book, from kalendae, calends (from the fact that monthly interest was due on the calends)

2005-10-31T05:15:00.000-06:00

Halloween rates low on my favorite holidays list. Our American culture definitely lacks real festivals or feast days which historically molded a community into an actual societal unit. Thanksgiving is more like a family's "pig-out" day rather than an actual feast day with a festival atmosphere for the community. Maybe we need some good 'ol public hangings of witches to bring the community out in mass?

I was walking Yoshi yesterday in my neighborhood contemplating upon the subject of neighborhoods and what they actually are in this age of satellite television. I would be hard pressed to even identify the other people who even live in my apartment building if I should see them in a grocery story or a police line-up. I might recognize the lady who lives across the hall from me only due to the fact she is always knocking at my door completely stressed out because of someone parking in "her stall". Each time I annoy her by explaining that I have probably lived here the longest and there really aren't any assigned parking stalls, you just take the one available. There is a young Mexican couple in the building and the woman has come to my door and her little girl has asked to use my phone ... her mother does not speak English. There is a car in our lot that always has a tarp over it and it has North Carolina license plates ... looks pretty suspicious and I don't honestly believe it belongs to anyone in my building.

Have decided if I'm around next Spring it is my intention to create a type of patio setting around the door of my building with flower pots, etc. There is a small space of soil between the sidewalk and the fence and it is currently weeds. Think I will go buy some clover seed since it is total shade and create a clover patch ... a few 4-leaf clovers outside one's door is much better "energy" than what is there now!

I've been questioning whether I have withdrawn from society or in all honesty if I even want to be a part of the society that surrounds me. I have been actively observing the women that appear to be in "my age group" when I am out and about. It appears as if that either they are entering a real "grandmother-mode" or they have completely fallen victim to the beauty myth and are trying to compete with 30 year olds. And, there are those that I define as rich hippies that wear their expensive sandals and drive expensive cars. I ask myself what would I talk about with those women if we should sit down to share a cup of coffee. And, I know what would happen, I would sit there as usual and listen to them go on and on and on about whatever is currently their focus of attention in their lives. It would be the usual "he said, she said, etc" dramas of families or work situations.

Signs of old womanhood are not supposed to be seen. Women are socially and professionally handicapped by wrinkles and gray hair in a way that men are not. A multibillion-dollar 'beauty' industry exploits women's well-founded fear of looking old. This industry spends megafortunes to advertise elaborately packaged, but mostly useless, products, by convincing women that their natural skins are unfit to be seen in public. Every female face must be resurfaced by a staggering variety of colored putties, powders and pastes. Instead of aging normally through their full life cycle, women are constrained to create an illusion that their growth process stops in the first decade or two of adulthood... There is an enormous gulf between a society like this and earlier pre-patriarchal societies where elder women were founts of wisdom, law, healing skills, and moral leadership. Their wrinkles would have been badges of honor, not shame.
-- Barbara Walker, The Crone

I have total "Drama Burnout" at this time of my life. I have concluded that I have reached a new "Birth-Life-Death" phase of my earthwalk again.

crone
Commonly a synonym for Hag. However, within Wiccan and other Neo-pagan communities the term crone is reserved for honored elder women. It is a term of respect, acknowleging the wisdom and strength that comes with age.

The crone is also known as the dark mother, old woman of wisdom, magic, and power. She aided the dying as they passed over, and knew the secrets to prepare the bodies of the dead.

"Virgin-Mother-Crone" commonly termed the 3 phases of the female.

The Dark Mother is the most misunderstood of the triple aspects of the Goddess. Her color is Black and she absorbs everything, including light and life. The dark of the Moon is Her time, the Abyss and darkness of space Her home. Her number is nine, symbolizing wisdom and sacred magick. Nine is also the number of completion and the completion of beginnings is the Crone's place in the cycle of birth-life-death.

Menopause may be likened to the initiation into the crone phase of one's existence in the female body. The ending of the "mother" phase brings one into the initiation rite of another phase of life.

Initiation, the transition and attendant ceremonies, such as ordeals and rites, involved in passing from one state or status to another, often from childhood to adulthood. It was among the most important social institutions of early humans. The ordeal measures the initiate's worthiness to enter the new status. Initiation may mean the cessation of contact with those who have not been initiated. Seclusion, mutilation, symbolic representation of death and resurrection, the display of sacred objects, special instruction, and restrictions on the initiate are frequent attributes of the ceremonies. Many early societies had puberty initiations. Their purpose was to induct the young person both into the full status of an adult and into the religion of the group.

As I find myself frequently telling myself, "Life is a journey to experience, not a puzzle to be solved".

2005-10-27T04:44:00.000-05:00

Observing what thoughts come dancing into my consciousness as I drink my first cup of coffee upon awakening for the day seems to always provide me entertainment. I really don't require a very large "entertainment budget" and in all honesty I do believe I am more entertained within my apartment than outside its walls. I have contemplated upon where I would desire to travel to if I went upon a "vacation" and I really can't think of anywhere I really want to visit except maybe my youngest daughter's home in Colorado.

Etymology: vacation
c.1386, "freedom or release" (from some activity or occupation), from O.Fr. vacation, from L. vacationem (nom. vacatio) "leisure, a being free from duty," from vacare "be empty, free, or at leisure" (see vain). Meaning "formal suspension of activity" (in ref. to schools, courts, etc.) is recorded from c.1456. As the U.S. equivalent of what in Britain is called a "holiday," it is attested from 1878.

Etymology can be simply defined as maybe the history of a word or the study of the sources and development of words. It finds a course comparison to following a river back to its source or where the river found birthing or origination.

In the case of the word vacation it is found that vacation sprung from or was birthed out or from the linguistic soil of the word vain.

Etymology: vain: c.1300, "devoid of real value, idle, unprofitable," from O.Fr. vein "worthless," from L. vanus "idle, empty," from PIE *wa-no-, from base *eue- "to leave, abandon, give out" (cf. O.E. wanian "to lessen," wan "deficient;" O.N. vanta "to lack;" L. vacare "to be empty," vastus "empty, waste;" Avestan va- "lack," Pers. vang "empty, poor;" Skt. una-in vain "to no effect" (c.1300, after L. in vanum) preserves the original sense. "deficient"). Meaning "conceited" first recorded 1692, from earlier sense of "silly, idle, foolish" (1390).

Since about the age of 22 when I began studying for the state's abstracting exam covering the conveyancing laws relating to real estate titles, I have been aware of the impact of "Old French" upon our country's legal system. Legal contracts reveal what profession owns the English language and that profession is the legal profession. English may be a area of study in higher education however you do not hire an English professor to interrupt the meaning of words in a contract built from the English vocabulary base.

Picking up an Etymology dictionary of English words quickly shows how the bulk of our spoken vocabulary finds origination from "Old French (O.Fr.)" words. And, what is "Old French(O.Fr.) but the result of the Gauls loosing to the armies of the ancient Roman Empire.

Gaul

Old French began when the Roman Empire conquered the territory it called Gaul during the conquests of Julius Caesar, which were substantially completed by 51 BC. The Romans introduced the Latin language into southern France starting in around 120 BC, when they occupied southern Gaul during the Punic Wars.

Gaul: An ancient region of western Europe south and west of the Rhine River, west of the Alps, and north of the Pyrenees, corresponding roughly to modern-day France and Belgium. The Romans extended the designation to include northern Italy, particularly after Julius Caesar's conquest of the area in the Gallic Wars (58–51 B.C.).

The "Romance" languages not being named because they are "romantic", rather due to the presence of the "Roman Empire".

Romance languages
All of the Romance languages are descended from Latin. They are called Romance languages because their parent tongue, Latin, was the language of the Romans. However, the variety of Latin that was their common ancestor was not classical Latin but the spoken or popular language of everyday usage, which is believed to have differed greatly from classical Latin by the time of the Roman Empire. This vernacular, known as Vulgar Latin, was spread by soldiers and colonists throughout the Roman Empire. It superseded the native tongues of certain conquered European peoples, although it was also influenced by their local speech practices and by the linguistic characteristics of colonists and later of invaders.

Our country's legal system being directly mothered from the ancient Rome Empire by means of it's vocabulary base that traveled through "Old French" into the British Isles when they finally fell in 1066 when a French duke conquered England.

In 1337, most of the English nobility spoke French, although most knew enough English to deal with their subjects. When duke William of Normandy conquered England in 1066, he did so as a French noble. But since duke William had conquered a kingdom, he had become king of England while remaining duke of Normandy (and a subject of the French king).

It isn't taught children in Sunday schools that when the nativity story was taking place, the Roman armies were busy attacking the British Isles and had forts along the Rhine.

Real and personal property sustains the wealth of the rich and it is by means of language that laws are there to protect such wealth. Understanding the materialism rampant in our own culture requires that one realize our whole English language has been built upon the accummulation of property by society's "elite". In 120BC the Roman elite began to "own" the people known as the Gauls (French). Our modern legal system in America was carried over from the Old World and reveals the march of the Roman Empire across Europe and now in the Americas.


Etymology: slave (n.): c.1290, "person who is the property of another," from O.Fr. esclave, from M.L. Sclavusschiavo, Fr. esclave, Sp. esclavo), originally "Slav" (see Slav), so called because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples. "slave" (cf. It.
"This sense development arose in the consequence of the wars waged by Otto the Great and his successors against the Slavs, a great number of whom they took captive and sold into slavery." [Klein]
O.E. Wealh "Briton" also began to be used in the sense of "serf, slave" c.850; and Skt. dasa-, which can mean "slave," is apparently connected to dasyu- "pre-Aryan inhabitant of India." More common O.E. words for slave were þeow (related to þeowian "to serve") and þræl (see thrall). The Slavic words for "slave" (Rus. rab, Serbo-Croatian rob, O.C.S. rabu) are from O.Slav. *orbu, from the PIE base *orbh- (also source of orphan) the ground sense of which seems to be "thing that changes allegiance" (in the case of the slave, from himself to his master). The Slavic word is also the source of robot. Applied to devices from 1904, especially those which are controlled by others (cf. slave jib in sailing, similarly of locomotives, flash bulbs, amplifiers). Slavery is from 1551; slavish is attested from 1565; in the sense of "servilely imitative" it is from 1753. slave-driver is attested from 1807. In U.S. history, slavocracy "the political dominance of slave-owners" is attested from 1840.

It always fascinates me so to observe what attracts my consciousness when I awaken in the morning. It was the thought of enjoying being within the walls of my home that carried me to thoughts of the Gauls being carried into slavery by the ancient Romans in 120 BC. What do you do to conquered peoples but to take away their language and replace it with yours. The words "weekend" and "vacation" are interesting words to study in our culture brought down through ages from the Romans who were once only an outpost or territory of the Greeks - much like the colonies in the New World were an outpost or territory of Europeans.

There are carrots on sticks to lead another as their are whips to make them move.

Etymology: leisure: 1303, "opportunity to do something," also "time at one's disposal," from O.Fr. leisirloisir) "permission, leisure, spare time," noun use of infinitive leisir "be permitted," from L. licere "be permitted" (see license).

There are those that "give permission" and those that "get permission" and the duality of words within our modern American language goes on and on.

It is interesting to note that the word FREE is a word NOT originating from the Roman Empire.

free (adj.): O.E. freo "free, exempt from, not in bondage," also "noble, joyful," from P.Gmc. *frijaz (cf. M.H.G. vri, Ger. frei, Du. vrij, Goth. freis "free"), from PIE *prijos "dear, beloved" (cf. Skt. priyah "own, dear, beloved," priyate "loves;" O.C.S. prijati "to help," prijatelji "friend;" Welsh rhydd "free"). The adv. is from O.E. freon, freogan "to free, love." The primary sense seems to have been "beloved, friend, to love;" which in some languages (notably Gmc. and Celtic) developed also a sense of "free," perhaps from the terms "beloved" or "friend" being applied to the free members of one's clan (as opposed to slaves, cf. L. liberi, meaning both "free" and "children"). Cf. Goth. frijon "to love;" O.E. freod "affection, friendship," friga "love," friðu "peace;" O.N. friðr, Ger. Friede "peace;" O.E. freo "wife;" O.N. Frigg "wife of Odin," lit. "beloved" or "loving;" M.L.G. vrien "to take to wife, Du. vrijen, Ger. freien "to woo." Sense of "given without cost" is 1585, from notion of "free of cost." Of nations, "not subject to foreign rule or to despotism," it is recorded from 1375. Freedman "manumitted slave" first recorded 1601. Colloquial freeloader first recorded 1930s; free fall is from 1919, originally of parachutists; free-hand is from 1862; free-thinker is from 1692. Freebie dates back to 1942 as freeby, perhaps as early as 1900. Free-for-all "mass brawl" (in which anyone may participate) first recorded 1881. Freebase (n. and v.) in ref. to cocaine first recorded 1980.

2005-10-26T03:01:00.000-05:00

It's currently 3 o'clock in the morning ... talk about being wide awake in the middle of the night. Last night I experienced 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep ... guess I just need to appreciate those nights when they happen. But then, have to admit I do enjoy being awake at this time of the night. I have to chuckle "why" I did wake up. Sharing my home with nocturnal little guys that carry the names of Chewey-Baby and Sophie ... chinchillas ... are the reason for my being awakened. I woke up because those two little guys were using my bed as some kind of race track running up and down on me and my little rat terrier Yoshi who was also sound asleep down under my covers by my knees. I swear they were trying to wake Yoshi up and they definitely succeeded. Those little chincillas just love teasing Yoshi and Yoshi seems to really love playing with them. When chinchillas are active, they are definitely active and then just like "poof" they will be gone and back in their sleeping places. Yoshi and the little chinchillas are now done playing and Yoshi has tunneled into the comforter on the couch and is once again asleep and the chinchillas are not to be seen - however, I am left wide awake!

I believe it was when my 2nd daughter was in high school that in one of her teenage rages she yelled, "Why can't I have a normal family?" and I have transformed her question into mine, "Why can't I be a normal person?". How many 55 year old women are awaken in the middle of the night by 2 chinchillas running up and down her body and sitting on her shoulder looking at her face and tickling her with their very long whiskers. Chinchillas are such very smart and sweet little guys, it breaks my heart that humans kill them in order to skin them. But then in Asia, some dogs are killed for their fur.

I do believe that one of the real benefits of experiencing human embodiment is the vast amount of life forms upon this planet that we can experience with our senses. Humans can be so vain in falsely believing we are the highest species in this miraculous universe that manifests the movements of Life.

Since I was a little girl, I have felt as if I needed to justify to my parents why I deserved existence. It's so very difficult to explain or put into words how one's parents can make a child feel so worthless. It was getting to the very root of this childhood pain that really acted to assist in my being rid of suicidal ideations in 1993. And over this past week, I have had to once again acknowledge that injured little girl that still is within me and reassure her that she definitely deserved to exist and was most worthy of respect. I recall once reading the book:

"Healing the Child Within"
Discovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families
Charles L. Whitfield
_________________________________________
The "Child Within" refers to that part of each of us which is ultimately alive, energetic, creative and fulfilled; it is our real self -- who we truly are.

Dr. Whitfield describes the journey of discovery and healing our fears, confusion and unhappiness. This book begins where many others describing adult children of alcoholics have left off. It also describes and develops the concept of adult children of troubled or dysfunctional families in general, rather than focusing only on the alcoholic family.

___________________________________

Feeling the Feelings
By: Robert Burney MA

“It is through healing our inner child, our inner children, by grieving the wounds that we suffered, that we can change our behavior patterns and clear our emotional process. We can release the grief with its pent-up rage, shame, terror, and pain from those feeling places which exist within us.
That does not mean that the wound will ever be completely healed. There will always be a tender spot, a painful place within us due to the experiences that we have had. What it does mean is that we can take the power away from those wounds. By bringing them out of the darkness into the Light, by releasing the energy, we can heal them enough so that they do not have the power to dictate how we live our lives today. We can heal them enough to change the quality of our lives dramatically. We can heal them enough to Truly be happy, Joyous and free in the moment most of the time.”
*
"There is no quick fix! Understanding the process does not replace going through it! There is no magic pill, there is no magic book, there is no guru or channeled entity that can make it possible to avoid the journey within, the journey through the feelings.
No one outside of Self (True, Spiritual Self) is going to magically heal us.
There is not going to be some alien E.T. landing in a spaceship singing, "Turn on your heart light," who is going to magically heal us all.
The only one who can turn on your heart light is you.
The only one who can give your inner children healthy parenting is you.
The only healer who can heal you is within you.”

2005-10-24T05:55:00.000-05:00

I had one of those nights wherein I woke up this morning wondering if I really did sleep. I have no problems falling asleep, rather I awaken not feeling as if I rested, rather that I spent the night working at some type of job and I feel such relief that I can get up out of bed. I recall reading that Einstein spent only 4 hours a night sleeping. Each person has their own rhythm of waking and sleeping and personally right now I'm not real happy with mine. The description "sleeping with one eye opened" just came to me and describes my sleep experience.

Stress (roughly the opposite of relaxation) is a medical term for a wide range of strong external stimuli, both physiological and psychological, which can cause a physiological response called the general adaptation syndrome, first described in 1936 by Hans Selye in the journal Nature.

Selye described the general adaptation syndrome as having three stages:

alarm reaction, where the body detects the external stimulus
adaptation, where the body engages defensive countermeasures against the stressor
exhaustion, where the body begins to run out of defenses

Stress includes eustress ("positive stress") and distress ("negative stress"), roughly meaning challenge and overload. Both types may be the result of negative or positive events. If one's dog dies and he/she wins the lottery, one does not cancel the other Â both are stressful events. Eustress is essential to life, like exercise to a muscle, but distress can cause disease. (Note that what causes distress for one person may cause eustress for another, depending upon each individual's life perception.) When the word stress is used alone, typically it is referring to distress.

Stress can directly and indirectly contribute to general or specific disorders of body and mind. Stress can have a major impact on the physical functioning of the human body. Such stress raises the level of adrenaline and corticosterone in the body, which in turn increases the heart-rate, respiration, blood-pressure and puts more physical stress on bodily organs. Long-term stress can be a contributing factor in heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and other illnesses.

I just deleted probably an hours worth of writing upon the phone conversation yesterday afternoon with of my aunt and all she told me my father has said about me to her. My father bad-mouths me and it seems my aunt (his sister) enjoys telling me what he has said. Those two are quite a team! My aunt also wanting to make sure I knew that my father "did not want to call me" to let me know he has arrived home after his trip to Texas ... reminding me of the little girl playing the "he called me, but he won't call you" game.

It was really obvious yesterday when listening to my aunt (she really doesn't give you a chance to do much talking) that bad-mouthing people describes the topic of her communications. If she isn't "letting me know what my bad-mouth father has said about me", she is talking about someone else's shortcomings and flaws. She told me about how her granddaughter and her husband and two children got her groceries and brought them to her, yet, had to focus upon how they had this dog out in the car and how she wouldn't let that dog in her house with a long discourse reminding me of my father regarding her hatred of dogs. I felt real compassion for her granddaughter and what she no doubt puts up with from my aunt.

I actually feel relief that my father didn't stop to see me in Lincoln on his way home from Texas. Now I face the personal task of "deactivating" the stress of possibility having my father in my home. My father is definitely a person that activates my flight-fight mechanism and is and has been since I can remember, a real negative stressor in my life. I have to chuckle with the comparison to awaiting my father coming to Lincoln like waiting for the Indians to come over the hill to attack your isolated cabin. There being "no where to run and no hope of the Calvary coming to rescue". Pretty sad actually.

"Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence."
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

2005-10-22T05:33:00.000-05:00

Unique Social Structure | Dominance and Submission

Dominance in the context of biology and anthropology is the state of having high social status relative to other individuals, who react submissively to dominant individuals. The opposite of dominance is submissiveness.

This morning I was once again facing the task of addressing my bunnies and chinchillas definite obsession with receiving their early morning raisins and cheerios. The chinchillas nibble on my toes and my bunnies get my attention by scratching on my leg if I should forget this early morning ritual. If I by chance sleep-in (which is a true rarity), I am awakened by these little guys hopping and running over my sleeping body. As the human in this little ecosystem of mine, I may technically hold the role of "apex predator", however, it is obvious that these little prey animals perceive me within their unique social structure as their "food slave".

For as long as I can remember, I have experienced total fascination with observing and gaining understanding of the behavior of specific individuals, whether these individuals be humans, dogs, rabbits, etc., and even pigs. In essence, I have been interested in ecosystems long before ecosystem even became a word within the Webster's dictionary. My 1968 (the year I graduated from high school) Webster's does not even have ecosystem yet listed as a word.

It was in the mid-80's when I was married to my second husband that I began to put words on the reality that my home was NOT a place that encouraged growing and flourishing of my person. I have two sister-in-laws who place high priority upon their housekeeping skills. However, my second husband could walk into their seemingly spot-less homes and find fault with what they perceive as their superior skills of cleaning. I recall having him point out dust on the rod of a hall coat closet and the hangers not arranged in precise order when I was attempting to raise 4 children. He like my sister-in-laws today, used cleaning as a means to judge and label others.

I am very much aware of the manner in which I am demeaned by my sister-in-laws and carry no fear to confront them face to face on this behavior of theirs and have done so in the past. As I have pointed out to them, they may walk into another's home and their focus of attention is upon how "clean" it is, but personally I walk into another's home and focus my attention upon the reading material the person surrounds themselves by ... and in both of their homes, there is a complete absence of books. The focus of our time and energies of attention in this life reveal our values and priority systems. We each make choices as to how we make use of the precious gift of time and energy given us. Suffice it to say, I could really give a damn whether the ceiling fan has been dusted this week and when I pass over to the other side, if I am judged by whether or not I have weekly dusted it, then "so be it", I flunked.

I have a large statute of Saint Francis (patron saint of animals) in my livingroom and the Prayer of St. Francis very special to me.

Lord, Make me a channel of thy peace,
that where there is hatred, I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of Forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring Harmony;
that were there is error, I may bring Truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring Faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring Hope,
that were there are shadows, I may bring Light;
that were there is sadness, I may bring Joy.
Lord, Grant that I may seek to Comfort, rather than to be comforted ;
To Understand, than be understood;
to Love, than be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one Finds.
It is by Forgiving that one is Forgiven.
It is by dying that one Awakens to Eternal Life.

I so enjoy living by myself wherein I do not have to have involvement in the silly dominance-submission games that humans play. My sister-in-laws were not my sister-in-laws during the time period when my 5 bedroom home (hall closet and unfinished basement) could have passed the "White Glove Test" with honors. My second husband gave expanded meaning to the cleanliness of even a "junk drawer". I am definitely not ignorant (holding a lack of knowledge) of what a spotlessly clean house is!

At this time period of my life, I can wake up and enjoy my first cups of coffee with chinchillas nibbling on my toes and rabbits trying to get my attention to remind me to put oats and raisins in their little basket. I no longer wake up and look around my house and start thinking about all that needs to get done in order to retain some type of self-image based upon my housekeeping skills. Materialistic is a such an ingrained mental stance in our culture that seems to judge a human's worth or value by possessions owned or outward appearance.

I am sitting here in my darkened livingroom with my cup of coffee and chuckling about how Chewey-Baby my white chinchilla continues to hop on top of Yoshi (my little rat terrier) who is tunneled into the down-filled comforter trying to sleep. Chewey continues this until Yoshi sticks her head out of the blanket ... it's like their little game. When the sun starts shining in the windows my little chinchilla guys will be completely out of sight sleeping in their secluded little hiding places I provide for them and the bunnies will be sleeping in the corner next to their fan which they love. Some people buy kitty litter for their cat's litter boxes, I buy Timothy Hay for the litter boxes of my chinchillas and bunnies. I also have a box of sand for my bunnies to dig in ... and I have discovered it also works as a type of emery board for their nails.

Today my two younger brothers and my father return from their fishing trip to Texas and I sure hope they DON'T stop at my apartment. My place looks pretty organized and the floors are decent, however, my father will focus anger towards my little dog and I really have no desire to have his hateful energies in my home. I am truly contemplating moving my car from it's normal parking place to appear as if I am not at home and just not answer my door today ... pretty sad. My second husband got kicked out of my home in 1988 when I made the decision that the place where I live will be a place that accommodates my growth and flourishing. As I am not a slave to the sound of a telephone ringing, likewise, I am not a slave to the sounds of a doorbell. MEAN PEOPLE SUCK. As the apex predator in my little apartment ecosystem, I will use those energies to protect my little guys from exposure to humans who think they can push God off His Throne and be self-appointed judges and want-to-be executioners of other's life energies.

"Strange is our Situation Here Upon Earth."
-Albert Einstein

My "Keep Nepal Free blog"

2005-10-20T06:45:00.000-05:00

Link: John Narayan Times

The above was in my inbox and sometimes we all need a little pat on our backs. I refer to my Keep Nepal Free blog as my political statement. I created this blog over a year ago at a time period when I was getting completely fed up with American politics. Nepal is a very poor Kingdom with huge neighbors such as China and India and the birthplace of the Hindu prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, i.e., the original Buddha (563-483 B.C.). However, Nepal is primarily Hindu. Nepal infrequently hits the top lines of the international news scene, however, there is news constantly pouring out of Nepal. The Maoists are actively attempting to violently take over Nepal and essentially lay siege on the villages and countryside. If that isn't bad enough the internal government wherein there is a King lays in total chaos. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, yet did send relief money for Katrina. Visit my blog and its archive if you want to educate yourself on the happenings in Nepal.

This morning the temperature is in the 40's and there is a light rain .. this should convince the migratory birds to move south if they haven't already. If I was a bird, I would definitely prefer to be a migratory one, but given my luck I'd probably end up being a water fowl and shot out of the sky by some great white hunter and their shotgun.

My rat terrier Yoshi has the right idea this morning, she is once again tunneled into the comforter on the couch and I'm sitting here with my cup of coffee and a cold nose ... turned on my handy-dandy Fisher-Price heater to take the chill out of the room this morning. That little heater is incredible. Last winter during a below zero cold spell when my furnace quit working that little guy kept my place at a temperature that wasn't too bad. It appears to be made for environments with children and very safe ... good 'ol Fisher-Price makes more than toys. That's my commercial for the morning.

I have to chuckle at myself. In an attempt to organize my host of websites, I have established quite a few email accounts on both Yahoo and Google (Gmail) and that does take into consideration my email account on AOL and my Earthlink email. This organization attempt definitely backfired and now I have way too many email accounts to keep track of. My primary email is bunik@yahoo.com but it is lindabunik@gmail.com that is used for my Keep Nepal Free blog wherein just by luck I checked this email account this morning to find the above email that I have posted from a journalist from Nepal.

This miraculous universe works in weird ways. I woke up this morning and after my prayer of sending "peace and prosperity to all of creation" I always await with great fascination to see what thoughts will be arriving to join me for my first cup of coffee. After attending to the thoughts about how I needed to get some warm socks and turn on the space heater to prevent frost bite, "fall housecleaning" thoughts came dancing in. My response to perceiving that I was thinking about cleaning before I finished my first cup of coffee made me actually chuckle at myself. That is why once I got on the internet I decided to check out my multiplicity of email addresses and clean them out of spam, etc., and why I found the above email complimenting me. Given my tendency to ignore my vast number of email accounts, that email could have been sitting there for over a week unread.

The universe knew I needed to feel some personal validation given the past week wherein I've needed to stop the bleeding resulting from a family of origin who regards my person as subhuman. I went to my doctor's appointment yesterday and the neurologist completely surprised me by asking if "my family was still using me as their punching bag". I essentially told him that I am taking up boxing and am learning some defensive and offensive moves. You can't change others, only yourself.

It is my very firm spiritual belief that we chose the family that will provide us the vehicle for our earthly experience in flesh. Birth and death being transformations belonging to the physical form, not our eternal "spiritual form". It is also taught that children so often function to "teach their parents lessons of love" and so frequently "pain is the teacher and love is the lesson". And then to steal Clarissa Pinkola Estes's quote regarding how one can frequently feel as if the stork delivered you to the wrong house.

2005-10-19T05:52:00.000-05:00

What is on my mind this morning that gets my attention, and I want to cling to and run with?

I just deleted a long discourse I had written regarding a phone call from my 78 year old aunt last evening. I think I would prefer my family of origin sitting around and fighting about the topics of politics then listening to what seems to be the never ending gossip. If my aunt was not elderly, I would have just terminated the phone call from her last night. I did keep trying to switch the subject off of talking about someone in my family or what my father currently is saying about me, however, my aunt is good and stays focused on transmitting any gossip (and repeating it and repeating it) that could possibility be used to "start problems".

In about an hour and a half I need to leave to go to a doctor's appointment. The neurologist who keeps telling me to avoid people, places and situations that give me any stress. I have told him that stress is needed in one's life, like a tree experiences stress when it grows, and that it is actually STRAIN that is injuring. He chuckled and told me I was probably right, but stress is word that is more understandable.

I ask myself if something makes "my blood pressure rise" when I want to determine what is a strain in my life. Seeing my aunt's name on my caller ID last night could go into that category. If it isn't some new insult my father told her about me, she repeats all the old ones a couple of times during the conversation. And I swear that she calls me to get some new information that she and my father can discuss during their daily telephone conversations. My father calling her daily even now while he is visiting in Texas.

When I see her name on my caller ID I really would like to not answer the call. I always give in and answer because she is 78 and I never know if something could happen to her and I really don't want to feel guilty for anything I did towards her - like blow her off. However, my dad and his sister are both walking a very fine line ... I am a patient person and they are definitely pushing that patience. I am making the decision that from now on I am going into my "Mother's Mode" with both of them. They do need someone to instruct them that it just isn't very nice to always say bad things about people. Granted they have done this their whole life and odds of them changing are null, but maybe it will quit being so much fun for them to dump their crap on me. And if nothing else, it will remind me that I am encountering a very mean childish adult and I need to have my shields up.

They say the Baby Boomers are the sandwich generation, we are sandwiched between elderly parents and children. But the sad truth is that my children even at their sickest didn't give me the strain and real pain that my parents continually have given me for as long as I remember.

I decided to not have telephone involvement with my father just the other day, and it seems like he has already called in "his troops" and sent his sister to call me to try to find out why I have not tried to contact him. Last night when my aunt tried to pump me to find out why I haven't called to make sure they made it to Texas alright, I just said I didn't have Jason's phone number and go by the belief that "no news is good news". He's with my two brothers and if something had happened someone would have let me know. I also told her that my father has my telephone number, he could call me to let me know he arrived safely.

I frequently talk about not wanting involvement in dramas, it takes too much energy. However, there is a new drama arising from my trying to get out of the old victimization drama of talking to my father every night. At least when my dad sends my brother to try to guilt me into calling him our conversations don't last for over an hour, as they did last night with dad's sister. My brothers are out in the Gulf on the fishing boat, so I guess dad had to seek out someone else to try to dump guilt on me. I can't help myself for letting it bother me that I am sure Jason's wife in Texas is getting an earfull about what a disappointing daughter I am. Guess it's just another one of those big "so be its". It maybe comes down to the fact that if someone likes to listen to gossip there is nothing I can do to change that.

Thinking of change, I need to change clothes and get ready for my appointment to hear how I should avoid people, places and situations that cause me any stress.

2005-10-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

Last night I actually slept 8 hours without interruption ... prior to that it seemed as if I was having my eyes pop open at about 3am and unable to fall back to sleep. Last night I decided to just keep drinking coffee until 10pm ... and, the caffinine evidently didn't mess up my abilities to sleep last night!

In June of 2003 after returning to Lincoln after spending about a year and half in my parent's home caretaking my mother, I ended up spending a whole week in the hospital leaving with a diagnosis of "severe depression syndrome" and the instructions from my doctor to "stay away from my parents". Over the past several months I've been becoming aware of the ugly clouds of depression once again contaminating my everyday life. I am no stranger to BOTH being freed from depression and suffering from depression however sometimes it takes me a bit to recognize when depression is once again making an appearance.

EXPERIENCE, STRENGTH AND HOPE
I do like the expression "Experience, Strength and Hope" and I add my own expression, "Do not confuse my temporary weakness with a lack of personal strength". WEAK would more than accurately describe my primary symptom when I enter the clouds of depression.

In recent years, theorists have argued that many depressed individuals depend upon others for their self-esteem, and that the loss of one of these emotional supports often precipitates a depressive reaction. A number of psychologists contend instead that depression is a result of learned helplessness, which occurs when a person determines through experience that his actions are useless in making positive changes. Other theorists have shown that genetic factors play a major role in depression.

Learned Helplessness

It was when I ran across Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book "Women Who Run with the Wolves" that I first grasped real conscious awareness of learned helplessness as it related to my own life. I find that it is interesting I began a blog focusing up her quotes from that book just prior to the time I really pinpointed the appearance of depression in my life once again. That in a way, I just instinctually turned to the book that had been sitting on book shelf for way over a year untouched just recently. This being the book that I found in 1993 in a library that assisted in TOTALLY ERADICATING any sucidal ideations from my mind ever again since that time. Estes hold a Ph.D. and specializing in Jungian psychology and writes about women's "soul issues". I once sat down and wrote and sent a thank you letter to that woman who impacted my life so positively.

Learned helplessness has psychological studies that I would coarsely summarized as using dogs and how the dogs would stay in a cage and be shocked, once the dogs got habituated to being shocked, and even if the cage door is opened they will not exit their cage.

In my prior studies in abuse psychology back when I was in college, the terms high and low frustration tolerance levels were applied to alcoholism. The active alcoholic displaying a very low tolerance level to frustation whereas the codependent involved with the alcoholic displaying a very high frustration tolerance level. The expression "walking on eggshells" refers to being in the environment of someone with a very low frustration tolerance level ... they can "go off" without what seems the slightest reason. The codependent with a high frustration tolerance level attempts to "normalize" totally abusive behavior.

I would bring learned helplessness into the picture to assist in understanding the attempt by anyone to "normalize" totally abnormal and abusive behavior. And I find that the word CAGE as used in the psychological studies involving dogs assists in gaining perception. The dog's cage represents the source that provides for their basic needs of shelter, food and water ... the basics of their survival.

The idea of "place where I sleep" (versus cage) could be used in regard to humans. As a child I lived in "my home" however in reality it was my parent's home wherein I was constantly reminded how "hard my father had to work" to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. Until I left home at 18 my mother would snoop through everything in my room, even finding a secret place I had in the floor of my closet where I kept the notes I had received in school from girlfriends, boyfriends, and other mementos I considered important. Even my own bedroom didn't afford me a "place of my own" for my brother's room next to mine had a hole in their closet wall wherein my brothers could stand on a chair in their closet and look directly into my bedroom. My parents only found humor in this after discovering I had no privacy even when changing clothes.

A "home" in my vocabulary base should represent a safe place to be that protects and nurtures you. My childhood home was more like a cage wherein I slept. A sad statement, but so very true. I remember I set up a little laboratory under the basement stairs where I had my little microscope and a picture of Thomas Jefferson above my little desk. This was the only place I found any privacy due to the fact the basement was full of spiders and spider webs and I was the only person that would go down there except for the poor meter reader who would have to go down those stairs. At least as a result, I have no fear of spiders and find them most entertaining!

I look back over my life of now 55 years and I can see how no matter where I live and with whom, I always had a sort of space ... no matter how tiny that provided me a "home" within a house. That little laboratory in the basement full of spiders was my "home" within the house wherein I slept.

Protecting is the Masculine and Nurturing is the Feminine
We are each to carry both the masculine and the feminine within us, and as in Taoism to achieve balance. The weak being protected by strong is seen throughout nature. I once said when I was a single mom and my children were small that a tribe of baboons exhibit more honor and respect for women with children than can be seen in our society claiming to be so advanced. I do not recall receiving honor and respect from anyone in my family of origin. My first real experience of respect was when I received a white Bible for 5-years perfect Sunday School attendence and then again in 5th grade when I could recite all the Presidents, Vice Presidents and Secretaries of State. In high school, I was class officers and was on the honor roll, had a lead in the class play, and was editor of the year book and was 1st chair trumpet when I was senior. In high schol I could essentially find a home away from home in school activities and my little basement laboratory become just a childhood memory after the 8th grade.

Unlearning learned helplessness is sometimes a seemingly never ending task!

2005-10-17T21:59:00.000-05:00

Well another Monday is now fading and its after 10pm ... good thing I changed the name of this site to just plain Coffee Notes (vs. Morning Coffee Notes) ... and, have just pour my last cup of coffee for the day having my coffee pot all ready to turn on when I awaken. Finished a writing that I've submitted to Schiziphrenia Digest has been a kind of project over the last couple days. First time I've really seriously submitted any of my writings and that had not been my original purpose for doing it originally. I am a writer in my core ... however with the number of websites I play around with I evidently have alot of stuff in my core.

I am curious as to the person that is on RoadRunner from Lincoln, Nebraska that visits some of my sites. If whoever that is reads this it would be nice if you would send me an email at bunik@yahoo.com and say hi and help ease my curiosity.

2005-10-16T07:10:00.000-05:00

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.
There can be no courage unless you're scared."
- Edward Vernon Rickenbacker

This morning my mind wanders off in thought to those early Church Fathers (and Mothers) who were monastic (mono | one) living in isolated places not seeking some kind of support group of those who shared like-views, etc. It is said that they would take merely one word and ponder and meditate upon that single word for at least a year's time. This finding great variance from memorizing passages from the Bible. I am sure that they could not have spoken that word that they held for a year in a careless manner or without thought.

Our materialistic culture teaches and habituates just the opposite. The larger the vocabulary base an individual "owns" the better and anyone pondering a single word for year would be regarded as but a fool. Our educational system in effect teaches a host of vocabulary bases, the words of a doctor will not be the words of an architect. The rows of specialized dictionaries in a library discloses this reality.

For years I have been fascinated with words ... what I sometimes like to call "energy packages". I was in my middle 20's when I first really read and actually trying to mentally ingest the words of John in the Bible, "In the beginning was the word ... ". Since the New Testament's original language was GREEK, the translation of the Greek vocabulary term "logos" was translated or rendered into the English language as "word". However, our modern English vocabulary term "word" finds a type of etymological root system to the idea of "keeping your word". In this age, a "word" is something around which dictionary makers abound and what keeps our higher educational system in business. And, I would also add enables our society to be kept in an organized hierarchy wherein "fine print" refers to words that carry more power.

The vocabulary term WORD
I have personally spent alot of time focusing energy and directed attention upon the vocabulary term "word". It is such a common little guy, but it's depth are incredible. To me the common vocabulary term "word" represents the human's miraculous ability to transform the energy in thought forms into a form manifested upon this physical plane.

THOUGHT FORMS
In our culture that seems to be know for humans who like to accumulate personal property (materialism) there doesn't seem to be much attention upon the thought forms that individuals also accumulate into their personal worlds. Stress being essentially thought forms attacking an individual in contrast to the ideas in the expression "peace of mind". What is "worry" other than a consciousness saturated in thoughts, i.e., thought forms.

Our thoughts can be translated into spoken and written words, however, they can also be perceived using adjectives such as ugly, beautiful, beastlike, etc. They hold form. A form finer than forms that are perceived by the optic nerve in our central nervous system, however that exist as forms of energy. FORCE is described as "the ability to do work". Thoughts are energy forms exhibiting the presence of FORCE and recognizable FORM.

For example, the thought of the package of cookies on the kitchen cabinet carries the force that potentially can make you get up and walk into the kitchen. The instinctual need of hunger does not motivate the activity, rather the thought of those cookies. Perhaps cookies had not been on your mind for hours and then all of a sudden the thought of cookies comes dancing into your consciousness. Or the thought can crash into your consciousness, sneak into your consciousness, or you may decide you are hungry and you can call the thought into your consciousness.

I ask, how can anyone be rid of either worry or stress if they are totally oblivious or lack any real understanding of their personal arena of consciousness wherein thought forms come and go.

Most people think that meditation is just sitting there with some kind of empty mind. It was in 1980 that a friend of mine took me to a Buddhist mediation hall in Boulder. Before we went he explained that all I needed to do was watch the thoughts that bubbled up in my consciousness and just look at them, not judge them, not cling to them, just watch while then another thought will come bubbling up into my consciousness.

Until that time when I was about 30, I had not given any real attention to the activities of thoughts in my consciousness. The word consciousness was merely an idea that was opposite to the ideas of being unconscious. I had never thought of consciousness being like a type of mental room wherein I was a type of operator. Thoughts were a master of me, I was not a master of my thinking processes.

If you start actively observing, we are frequently just vessels that thought forms use to express themselves with and they essentially drag us around wherever they will. It was my Buddhist friend that taught me about how I "cling to thoughts" rather than just let them bubble away. I initially became aware of the form of thoughts as "bubbles". I witnessed the seemingly never ending thoughts that could come bubbling into my consciousness. That first time in a Buddhist meditation hall I would get the thought that my foot itched, however, I didn't want to start moving around and as soon as I refused to act on that "itch thought", I would then get the thought I had an itch on my neck, etc. etc. Since everyone around me were not moving there was essentially no outside stimulus to keep my attention busy and I was kinda stuck having to watch the activity within.

2005-10-15T06:26:00.000-05:00

It always fascinates me to sit down at this site and begin journaling my thoughts ... seeing what springs into my mind. I have a sitemeter that records the visitors to this site and have decided that more people would probably read a handwritten journal of mine, as those that meander onto this site from off the main highways of the world-wide-web. This site finding course comparison to maybe a little shack down by the creek in some out-of-the-way county of some some little-traveled state. I have been keeping my Cave blog for now over a year and this morning there appears to have been 21,092 visitors since I installed a sitemeter in that blog. It is the news photos together with their stories on that blog that get pinged by search engines such as yahoo, google, alta vista, msn, etc. I have to chuckle at my two most popular pictures that are sought out on this website of mine:

#1 Most Popular "Hit"

1-20-05: All washed up ... a giant squid lies on Newport Beach, California. Scientists are trying to figure out why hundreds of the three-to-four-metre long squids washed up overnight along the southern California coast.

******

#2 Most Popular "Hit"

Photo: AFP

4-6-05
BY JOHN FAUBER and SUSANNE QUICK
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

An environmental toxin linked to common neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has been found in blue-green algae-contaminated water throughout North America and the world.

The international team of researchers that reported the finding this week suggested public health officials now should consider monitoring for the neurotoxin in waters that have blue-green algae "blooms," including water from the Great Lakes and smaller inland waters. The neurotoxin is called B-N-methylamino-L-alanine, or BMAA.

"We don't want to be alarmist. This is very preliminary research," said Paul Allen Cox, lead researcher on the paper and director of the National Tropical Botanical Garden, a research institute in Hawaii.

"But gosh, if there is a neurotoxin out there" it might be prudent to check it out, he said.
The research appears in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Other researchers agree the work is interesting and warrants further investigation. But they, too, caution it is only suggestive and no link between blue-green algae and common neurodegenerative diseases has yet been established.

"This is certainly very interesting science, and we're keeping an eye on it," said William Thies, vice president for medical and scientific affairs at the Alzheimer's Association. "However, its relevance to Alzheimer's disease has yet to be proven, "The story of Cox and his team's work began when researchers noticed that a large number of Chamorro people Â an indigenous population living in Guam Â were dying of an unusual, paralytic disease that resembled ALS but had Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease-like symptoms, too.

Investigators pointed to a tree called the cycad. Its seeds, which the Chamorro used for flour, showed trace levels of BMAA. A strain of cyanobacteria Â or blue-green algae Â grows inside cycad roots, where it produces BMAA. From there, it is transported throughout the plant, including the seeds.

But in the 1990s, the theory was discounted. Research showed that while BMAA can cause neurodegeneration in monkeys, in order to get toxic effects from cycad flour, a person would have to eat a heck of a lot of it, said Cox.

Intrigued, Cox, an ethnobotanist, set out to find out what was killing these people. He took an expedition to Guam that was partly funded by Verne and Marion Read, two Milwaukee-based philanthropists .

Cox knew the Chamorro were eating fruit-eating bats that foraged on cycad trees that produce BMAA. Maybe there was a "DDT effect" going on there, he thought: bio-magnification of a toxin through the food chain.

He examined bat tissue and discovered a 10,000-fold increase in BMAA concentration from seed to bat. This suggested to him that the Chamorro were unwittingly ingesting high levels of the neurotoxin.

He then decided to look at brain tissue from Chamorros who had died of the neurodegenerative disease. In order to control for possible baseline levels of the molecule in brain tissue, he examined 15 Canadian brains, too.

What he discovered was shocking: While most of the Canadian brains showed no sign of the toxin, two had BMAA molecules. What's more, he said, the two BMAA-positive Canadians had died of Alzheimer's disease Â the only two in the sample.

Further investigation revealed similar results: BMAA was discovered in brain tissue from eight Canadian Alzheimer's patients, but not in 14 others who had died from causes other than neurodegeneration. Where were these people coming into contact with BMAA, Cox wondered. And could other strains of cyanobacteria carry this neurotoxin?

To find out, he contacted blue-green algae experts around the globe and asked them to send samples. They complied, and he received samples from rivers, lakes and oceans. Of the 30 samples shipped to him, 29 tested positively for BMAA.

The neurotoxin appeared to be everywhere he looked.

Wayne Carmichael, a professor of aquatic ecology and toxicology at Wayne State University in Detroit, is not surprised that Cox found BMAA everywhere.

"Cyanobacterias produce dozens of bioactive properties," he said. It's quite possible that if you look, you'll find other toxins across the board.

Carmichael said what happened in Guam was a unique situation, and "it does not mean its widespread occurrence is a general risk to humans. There needs to be a unique set of circumstances to allow for high enough concentrations." He said Cox and his colleagues have not established what concentrations of BMAA are needed to cause harm.

Others question Cox's link between BMAA and neurodegeneration and say his research is based on questionable methods.

"The data are remarkably thin," said Christopher Shaw, a professor of ophthalmology and neuroscience at the University of British Columbia. "They make huge scientific leaps based on thin data."

Shaw said it's entirely possible that Cox's research is not picking up actual BMAA in diseased brains but rather a similar substance that is produced in the brain as the result.
He noted a vast number of biochemical abnormalities are in the brains of people with ALS, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. In any case, BMAA is an extremely weak neurotoxin, he said.
However, he said if Cox is right, his findings will have to be reproduced by others.
At least one group of researchers claims to have done that.

Scientists at the University of Miami have been studying the brains of ALS and Alzheimer's patients from Florida and other places in the United States.

"We are finding it (BMAA)," said Deborah Mash, a professor of neurology at the University of Miami and director of the Brain Endowment Bank. Mash said BMAA has showed up in all of the brain samples from ALS and Alzheimer's patients that have been tested by her lab. That research has not been published yet and the actual number of samples was not available, she said.

However, Mash said only one of 10 brain samples she examined from patients who did not have brain disease tested positive for the amino acid, she said. And so far, 40 to 50 brain samples from patients with brain diseases have tested positive for BMAA among all the labs that are looking for it worldwide.

However, to definitively establish the link between BMAA and brain disease scientists will have to find it in thousands of samples, she said.

"Here you have this cyanobacteria that's ubiquitous, that's in lakes, that could be moving up the food chain," she said. "Whether or not it's a major environmental toxin remains to be seen.

"But the story makes sense to me."

*****

You now know (as if you were really asking yourself ... "What posts on Linda's Cave blog are the most popular?) what is sought out on this blog of mine probably 5-10 times each day since they were posted.

HOWEVER, the current internet traffic currently getter is for any pictures I may have posted on a article I wrote about a porn star look-alike of a TV personality. I refuse to write their names or search engines will send porn star perverts to this site. I am thoroughly convinced if you desire a "high-traffic" website, make it "porn friendly" because it seems that what the a great majority of people using the world-wide-web seek.

This brings me to another thought ... the words "interstate highway" are associated in my mind to this thought: As teachers of the divine world-wide have taught and I translate as: If you are seeking the path to higher consciousnesssness, you know you are off the path if you find yourself on an interstate highway full of traffic.

It was maybe a decade and ahalf ago that I came across the mental exercise that I have given the name: my "lotus flower meditation". In this exercise you begin with a specific word or words (love, hope, cherish, etc. are words I initially used). From the core word that you have chosen you allow a thought you have attached to that specific word form in your consciousness ... like a petal on a daisy perhaps (why "lotus flower"). After that thought has formed you once again return to focus once again upon the core word you had chosen and allow another thought associated to that word to well up in your mental consciousness ... like another petal. In essence you are consciously seeking mental associations to a specific vocabulary term.

So frequently our mental associations are not within the reach of our conscious awareness. For example, we may smell a smell and immediately we begin thinking about a specific person or place alinstantaneousously. The smell mentally associated to a type of "file drawer within our minds" and sometimes a mental file drawer that may not have been opened for months or years.

My own mental associations fascinate me and frequently serve to entertain me. Such as having the word "interstate highway" associated to staying on the sometimes so solitary spiritual path. In the past, I focused much personal energy becoming aware of the interstate highway type traffic that one can find within the "Born-Again Christian" community wherein their are hierarchies of "spiritual adults", "spiritual babies", etc. I was around in the 1970's when this new Christian denomination of "Born-Agains" or the Born-Again phenomena burst forth as a result of TV evangelism.

2005-10-14T07:18:00.000-05:00

Active Vocabulary: The words you freely use in conversation
Passive Vocabulary: The words you recognize and understand, yet do not use in everyday conversation.

It was in a child psychology class in 1989 that I encountered the above definitions. The word vocabulary had proverbially been pounded into my head by my maternal grandmother probably beginning when I was in 1st grade. Prior to the "new" elementary school being built in my hometown when I was in 3rd grade, my older brother Joe and I would go to our maternal grandparent's house about 3 blocks away for lunch. The old elementary school being a 2 story red brick building with a "bell tower" adjacent to the high school and I am sure was built in the 1800's. This was during a time period in the mid-1950's prior to every family having a television set in their homes. Before television, it was as if you lived in a much "smaller world" made up of only those people you actually could reach out and touch.

My world when I started school was made up primarily of my parents and 3 brothers, my father's greenhouses, my maternal grandparents, my father's grandfather "Gramps" (who was born July 9, 1877), and the Presbyterian Church where I attended Sunday school and church each Sunday having received a little white Bible for 5-years perfect attendance. My maternal grandmother "Nana" if she had been male would have been a prime candidate for the Grand Dragon of the KKK. She was born in the late 1800's and her ancestors were from the South prior to her parent's move to Brownsville, Nebraska due to the "vile results" (her terms) of the Civil War that evidently messed up her family of origin's comfortable world. My father had been a Marine in WWII, however, it was from Nana that I heard about wars, however, it was the Civil War. In high school I won a state contest in American History, and I am sure my abilities in history were a result of listening to my grandmother talk for hours upon hours on this subject.

I have very few memories of my Mother talking to me when I was young, but I do carry alot of memories "watching her". I have no memories of my Father actually talking with me, but have lots of memories of being the butt of his jokes that made other people laugh both in my home and in the greenhouse. It was Gramps (Dad's grandfather, Jewitt John Bessey, aka Jake, my Gramps) and the man who enables me to be related to two Presidents (both the Adams) and Clark of "Lewis and Clark" fame who taught me how to tie my shoes, count change, and who would always let me sit on his lap and listen to the pocket watch he carried on a long chain. Gramps is the only adult in my memories that actually validated me "as a worthy little person". Nana would literally spend hours "talking at me" wherein I could leave and have not spoken a single word, she was a very lonely woman and not that much younger than Gramps having adopted my Mother when she was older in about 1930. Nana had been the pianist for the Kansas City Philharmonic and hated having to live in a small NE Nebraska farming community wherein she would even go to the grocery store having to wear her mink stole. She frequently "instructed" me how my Gramps had "come from the wrong side of the tracks" an instruction that always puzzled me since literally both Nana and Gramps "lived on the same side of the railroad tracks" that ran through our little town of Madison, Nebraska. Every holiday my mother prepared two meals ... one for my maternal grandparents and another for when Gramps came to our home (and Gramps always got the "left-over meal"). Both my maternal grandparents refused to be in our house at the same time as Gramps.

I was in my late 30's when I learned and began to realize that children raised in the same household can come away carrying very different memories of their childhood. I found out by literally questioning my 3 brothers that they did not carry any real memories of Gramps. I falsely believed for decades that they were as angry as me about how our parent's treated Gramps in contrast to Nana and "Granddaddy" (mother's parents). I have over the past 5 years listen to my father talk about "your poor Mother" having to make two dinners each holiday as if she was a saint and as if it was "normal" to have his wife and in-laws treat his grandfather (my Gramps) like crap.

I am the child that has memories of riding my bicycle over to visit Gramps in his little 1-bedroom house and of him always making me go into the kitchen and smell the Limberger cheese he always had in the refrigerator.

Lim·burg·er
n. A soft white cheese with a very strong odor and flavor.

I would smell it and do my "ritual reaction" and then we both would laugh and he would get me a glass of water and we would then sit in his livingroom. I remember still vividly his rocking chair that he would lean forward in to spit into a spitoon and I was always impressed how he could hit it with his chewing tobacco. I would sit on his couch with my glass of water on his small little side table and I would proceed to tell him about all that was happening in my life and he would seem to listen intently and rock back and forth in his chair. I remember one time when I stopped he was outside at a wooden table grinding horseradish with a grinder that was screwed onto the old table. I remember the smell and him telling me about how he had been "down by the creek to gather it". He would tell me stories about before there were cars and how long it would take to walk on the trail between the towns close by and how happy you would be if you saw a wagon coming along to give you a ride. I learned about the Indians that used to camp outside of Madison and how everyone had to keep their dogs inside when they showed up.

I recall very vividly the last time I saw Gramps. I was 14 and I was looking for him (he used to help my father at the greenhouses) and was told he just left. He always walked probably over a mile back to his home. I ran to the corner and saw him walking probably a block away and ran to catch up to him. I gave him a hug and a kiss on his cheek and told him I just wanted to say "Goodbye". I never saw him again until I saw him in casket at his funeral. For years I blamed myself for his death thinking I had given him "the kiss of death". I have tears in my eyes right now. I loved Gramps so.

Today I like horseradish and strong smelling cheese and really have no time for pretentious people who demean other humans.

PRETENTIOUS
adjective
Characterized by an exaggerated show of dignity or self-importance: grandiose, hoity-toity, pompous, puffed-up, puffy, self-important. Informal highfalutin. Seeplain/fancy.

Marked by outward, often extravagant display: flamboyant, ostentatious, showy, splashy, splurgy. See plain/fancy.

Carl Jung said, "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves".

2005-10-13T05:05:00.000-05:00

I recall that it was in June of 1985 that I learned about journaling. That was 20 years ago. A girlfriend that I worked with in Estes Park interrupted my suicide attempt about 10pm and given I was drinking at the time drove me to a treatment center where I checked myself in that night on the last day of May, 1985. It took two weeks for my then 2nd husband to figure out I was "missing" and my mother when I called her on the phone to tell her where I was responded with anger and told me I was just "trying to copy my father by being an alcoholic": disclosing the essence of my personal interrelationships at that time in my life when I was 34.

Journal
n. A personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept on a regular basis; a diary

It was in 1986 that I sat down at an antiquated manual typewriter that my grandmother once owned and began a month-by-month backwards chronological of my life. That was a little over year after my treatment center experience in Estes Park. I was no longer living in Colorado, but rather was living in my parents' home in Nebraska with my 2nd husband and four children. My parents adored my 2nd husband (who continued to be a chronic alcoholic) and I had transformed from once holding professional jobs which I had held from the time I was 23, to being the cook and housekeeper in my parent's house. Before I had married my 2nd husband I had been living in Westminister, Colorado being able to pay over $650 per month lease on a house for my children and carried true self-respect.

"People, places and situations" were what I used to enable my memory's march back through time in 1986 when I examined and attempted to gain understanding of just "what happened to me" that I became and was treated as if I was my then husband's and parent's 2nd class adult that they treated like literal crap and I should take it because "I deserved no respect".

What I discovered from my backwards chronological of my life in 1986 that it had been my family of origin and the males I allowed to become my husbands that represented the "people, places and situations" who demeaned me.

demean
verb

To deprive of esteem, self-worth, or effectiveness: abase, degrade, humble, humiliate, mortify. Idioms: bring low, take down a peg. Seerespect/contempt/standing, win/lose/recovery.

To lower in character or quality: cheapen, debase, degrade, downgrade. Seebetter/worse.

I do not chose the term demean lightly or without thought.

Last night I hung up from my a nightly phone call with my now 80 year old father, and the term "demean" still continues to be very descriptive of manner in which he communicates with me. I feel more kindness flowing from an over-worked and under-paid cashier in a grocery store than I feel flowing from my father towards me. It has been two decades since I first became consciously aware that my parents regarded me as a second-class human and my only living parent continues to hold and act upon that same judgment in regard to my person.

It was in 1993 that I made the decision to stay away from my family of origin and to also avoid close contact with ANY individual that would downgrade another to boost their own self-esteem. Since 1993 I have also NOT experienced ANY suicidal ideations.

There are "people, places and situations" that can be toxic or poisonous to one's person. Last night I realized that my frequent telephone calls to my father to "make sure he is alright" given he lives alone and has experienced a fractured hip a year ago have only served to give me an almost daily dose of toxic poison. The truth is I dread picking up the phone to call him in the evenings and I feel such relief when I hang up the telephone. In all honesty, I would truly rather walk barefoot through a cactus bed than have a conversation with my father. At least I could see the barbs that needed to be pulled from my bare feet ... the barbs that are shot at me through the telephone are much harder to remove and seem to stay within me and fester and continue to hurt for days.

One of the 10 commandments is to "honor your parents". I once heard a Jewish teacher state that if your elderly parents are "abusive", to honor them you must only make sure that they have food, shelter and access to medical care. It is not honoring them to allow yourself to be used as their target.

My father will only get one phone call a week from his only daughter and these almost nightly calls are going to cease as of today.

I'm creating another blog...

2005-10-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

I am in the process of creating a blog this morning wherein I can house my Clarissa Pinkola Estes quotes. You can check it out at:

http://estesquotes.blogspot.com/

I will be housing her profound thoughts there. Am going to visit Josie, she just called me and seems to have a real need for her mother this morning. Will be working on it more.

2005-10-12T07:40:00.000-05:00

What gives? My eyes popped open this morning and the sun had already risen! I missed my early morning hours of pre-sunrise. But I did actually get 8 hours of sleep, not my usual 5 or 6 hours. Sleep having been a topic on my mind yesterday. I watched an ad for a sleep aid last night wherein it spoke of taking it only when you knew you would have 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep ... and, I then was thinking how long it had been since I had slept for 8 hours uninterrupted.

I recall how my Mother used to say, "I like my ruts" referring to her habituated ways of going through each day. For example, you could bet money that if she was pulling her car out of her driveway to head to work at either the Greenhouse (prior to 1970) or the Ceramic Shop (until it was sold in about 1997), her bed had been made and her dishes had been washed and on Thursday nights she would be vacuuming and dusting her house ... that is unless they were in Mexico for about 3 months during the winter.

It was when my folks sold the Ceramic Shop that my Mother's health began to immediately go downhill ... this was even prior to my older brother's death in May of 1998. My Mother used to talk to me about how after their business was sold, she "got out of her comfortable rut" and how she "liked her rut". When my parents retired at the Lake and made it their primary home, it was probably within 6 months her health began to fail. I do not minimize people's habituated "ruts".

ha·bit·u·ate (hə-bĭch'ū-āt')
To accustom by frequent repetition or prolonged exposure.
To cause physiological or psychological habituation, as to a drug.
To experience psychological habituation.

Psychological habituation is the reason frequently provided for the "reason" that women remain in abusive relationships with men. It being "more comfortable" to remain in the injuring situation than to face the unknown outside of the relationship. Psychological studies wherein a dog will not leave a cage (even when it continually is exposed to electrical shocks) backs up the strength of habituation upon decision making skills.

2005-10-11T05:48:00.000-05:00

A "winking pumpkin" animation for my site this morning is pretty pathetic! I have never really been a fan of halloween probably stemming from my childhood days when I had to go to the city auditorium to spend the evening at my brother's Cub Scout Halloween night that was to keep the kids off the streets to avoid vandalism on the night kids beg for candy. Hanging around a bunch of younger kids all night when your own friends were out trick and treating and you were like a prisoner being tortured with a mob of Cub Scouts probably impacts my impressions relating to Halloween. No wonder I think of Halloween and little monsters running around dressed in blue Cub Scout uniforms. Those little Cub Scouts are now in their 50's.

Memories ... I'm probably one of the very few people on this planet that finds a mental association between Halloween and Scouting.

Just finished up my blog article about Olivia Newton-John and her missing boyfriend. Think finding out that her mother was the daughter of a 1954 German physicist who was instrumental in the wave-particle quantum physics discovery and subsequent Nobel Prize was the fact that impressed me the most. To realize the dimension wherein the material-particle world can also be perceived as also only waves discloses the real substance of existence.

While I was working on this article this morning, my gray chinchilla Sophie Bear bit my little toe to get my attention, she wanted a raisin. She doesn't bite hard ... just enough to get me to notice her at my feet. I do believe I've created a little herd of raisin-addicts and it is a good thing I got to the grocery store yesterday to buy some more since I ran out yesterday morning.

2005-10-09T05:16:00.000-05:00

I love the early morning hours so. That time of my first (and second) cup of coffee of the day. When the house is still dark and I refuse to turn on alot of lights. For literal decades I've claimed this time as "my time". I remember when my four children were babies, this was about the only time of the day I was alone and the rush of the morning had yet to begin. I rarely "sleep in" and am more inclined now in this age of my life to maybe return back to bed once the sun has arisen and I've sucked every moment out of the pre-dawn hours. I may have gone to sleep after 1am, but my eyes normally pop open shortly after 4am. Yoshi, my little "kling-on"puppy now reluctantly gets out of bed with me, however, she almost immediately hops on the couch and borrows in the comforter and returns to sleep in the livingroom only popping her head out to check up on me when I get up to pour another cup of coffee and as soon as she sees that's what I am doing, she is once again tunneling into the comforter out of sight.

Both my bunnies have been over to my desk to get their morning raisins, my chinchillas have yet to show up to ask for theirs. The early morning "raisin ritual" is much to cute and the jar of raisins I keep on my desk looks like it will need refilling today.

I once wrote in my journal at this time of the day ... but the computer is SO much easier for me. The bunnies are now playing their "chase each other game" right over the comforter on the couch wherein Yoshi was trying to sleep. I had to chuckle how she just popped her head out and appeared annoyed that the bunnies disturbed her sleep.

This morning I read in the Sydney (Australia) Sun-Herald newspaper that it is believed that over 30,000 people were killed in the earthquake in Kashmir.

I recall in the early 1990's I ceased reading newspapers because of all the bad news that I decided I didn't want to always ingest. I now find myself reading newspapers from all over the globe given my cable access to the internet. I don't know whether it is "good" or "bad" to fill my consciousness with human suffering that is taking place beyond my reach and beyond my little world. It has made me lose any desire I once held for world travel and has made me realize the preciousness of the place that I call "home".

2005-10-08T07:41:00.000-05:00

Will my thoughts today resemble sandburs, or will they resemble daisies? I do love Gerber daisies so.

2005-10-07T04:44:00.000-05:00

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish" -Albert Einstein

The physiology of a vulture discloses wisdom in the creature's ability to ingest and tolerate the food sources that sustain its existence. If I would dine on that which the vulture does, i.e., rotting corpses, I am sure I would not taste existence as Linda for long! The vulture can essentially transform death back into life ... why the vulture is such a heavy symbol that deserves study.

It's not yet 5am in the early morning hours, I have my second cup of coffee in front of me and I'm contemplating upon the wisdom of the vulture ... it's going to be another one of those days. And, if those around me ever wonder why at age 55 I am a single woman, this should explain it simply to them ... I don't have the time or energy to think about men, I find vultures much more fascinating. Plus, since I have awaken this morning and Yoshi (my little rat terrier) has burrowed under my feather comforter not ready to start her day ... I've chuckled as my two dwarf lop-ear bunnies (Snuggles and Ghangis Khan) and both my chinchillas (Sophie and Chewey Baby) have all hopped on the couch and looked at the big pile of comforter under which Yoshi is fast asleep and acted like they were really concerned about Yoshi ... so cute. All four of them (the bunnies and the chinchillas) have a real interrelationship with the silly puppy who now functions in their lives to provide them exercise (so they will stop being fat and lazy). They all have a "chase game" they play with the dog wherein they tease Yoshi into chasing them and all four of the little prey animals are too quick and clever and Yoshi always looses at this game which she also likes to play. Yoshi loves those 4 little guys and when they don't want to play she will bring one of her doggy toys over to them and shove it at them to get them to play and when they just ignore her she walks off so dejectedly. This morning the bunnies and chinchillas were the dejected ones because it is too early in Yoshi's day to play with her buddies ... and they acted as if they were concerned about Yoshi. TOO DARN CUTE. Tell me a man could fit into my odd ecosystem that I call "my apartment"!

I do love the early morning hours so. This is when my normally nocturnal guys are so busy. This is the temperature in Lincoln, Nebraska this morning when I got up:
I refuse to turn on my furnace yet, so one could easily say it is a little "nippy" in my apartment this morning ... the sun has yet to rise to provide some solar heat. However, the bunnies and chinchillas prefer the cool to heat and Snuggles and Ghangis have been "binking" this morning. When a bunny "binks" you know they are happy. Binking is when a bunny hops straight up in the air and does almost a complete 360 degree twist and lands back in the same spot. Watching them bink always puts a smile on my face.

When the sun begins to peek up in the east, the bunnies and chinchillas will become like "phantom pets" and retreat to their nap places for most of the day ... unless Yoshi bugs them into moving around. During the daylight hours a visitor in my apartment would not even know that I have chinchillas or bunnies, unless I show them where they are sleeping. However, between 2am and 6am my little apartment is full of lively energy.

Introducing a "predator" amongst all my little "prey" guys has been interesting ... especially a rat terrier who had been bred to kill rats. At least when I take Yoshi the rat terrier for walks she has no real interest in squirrels or rabbits that she sees and does not want to take off chasing them. I got Yoshi when she was about 8 weeks old but I would NOT want another dog to come to my apartment that has been raised and conditioned to perceive little prey animals as objects "to catch" as most dogs and cats are.

There is a biblical phrase regarding the "lion laying down with the lamb" that has always interested me. The ridding of the "predator-prey instincts" in my words. Years ago I spend a great amount of time examining the manner in which I attracted males that could easily be defined as predators into my life ... men who would predate my energies.

A predator is an animal or other organism that hunts and kills other organisms for food in an act called predation. Most predators are carnivores. Some predators are omnivores. The difference between a predator and a parasite is that for a predator killing the prey is necessary for consuming it, but for parasites it is not even desirable because a parasite lives on or in its host.
There may be hierarchies of predators; for example, though small birds prey on insects, they may in turn be prey for snakes, which may in turn be prey for hawks. A predator at the top of its food chain (that is, one that is preyed upon by no organism) is called an apex predator; examples include the Great White Shark Tiger. Sometimes a predator may have a profound influence on the balance of organisms in a particular ecosystem; introduction or removal of this predator, or changes in its population, can have drastic cascading effects on the equilibrium of many other populations in the ecosystem. In this instance the organism may be described as a keystone predator.

I have now decades ago in my 20s, 30s and 40s ended relationships with men feeling as if I was at the point of almost death ... emotionally and mentally. My last such relationship was now 10 years ago in 1995. It was at the time the terms predator, prey and ecosystem entered my active vocabulary base. The active vocabulary base will be those words that you speak with ease in contrast to your passive vocabulary base of words that you know what they mean but you infrequently use in speaking. I have a Websters dictionary that my older brother and his wife gave me for my high school graduation in 1968 and the word ecosystem is NOT even in that dictionary.

Today I perceive my home as an "ecosystem" that either enables me to grow and flourish or sets me up to deterioriate and decay. Today I consider my home as precious wherein it provides me refuge from the outside world and a place of "safety" and nurturing. In my past, I once allowed men to live as husbands or boyfriends in my home and who would daily transform it into a type of war-zone wherein their verbal attacks could leave me shredded. I came from the generation of parents that taught that "women needed a man in their life".

I "needed a man" when my four children were small to assist in the real task of parenting. I evidently found some kind of "dysfunctional" attraction to males that definitely were NOT conditioned to parent! It is my firm personal belief that we are in human embodiment to learn the lessons of parenting. Not necessarily always the parenting of adult to child, but also the lessons of "parenting self". The feminine is to carry the energies of nurturing whereas the masculine is to carry the energies of protection. To nurture and protect self requires wisdom to be embodied within.

2005-10-05T04:24:00.000-05:00

2005-10-04T19:08:00.000-05:00

No one will probably notice, but I just ran my picture header for this site through my photo workshop and transformed it from "Morning Coffee Notes" to just plain "Coffee Notes". When I set up this blog, "coffeenotes.blogspot.com" was already taken by someone who set up a blog in 2003 and appears not to have ever worked on it again. Therefore, I settled for the address of "morningcoffeenotes.blogspot.com .. the story of this little module of mine wherein I just kind of write what is on my mind at the current time.

Currently, it is too warm in my apartment. I took my air conditioner out of the window before this heat wave hit. It got back up into the 90's again today, but tomorrow will be cooler, so will just have to make it ... there is NO WAY I'm getting that thing back into my window again.

My almost 80 year old aunt called me today. She seemed to just couldn't wait to tell me that my father said that I dressed "like a bag lady" and how he wished I would dress more like my mother did. I will not even to this day wear a swimming suit without a baggy shirt over it due to the influence of my father's bad mouth when I was a teenager. If that doesn't hurt bad enough, my 27 year old daughter suffering from schizophrenia has a mean mouth that rivals both my father and his sister, my aged aunt. Just finished a phone conversation (if you can call it that) with her.

My predominate emotion at this time is a type of frustrated anger. I grew up with a mother who you essentially could not touch out of fear of "getting her dirty" .. she wore spike heels "to work" at the family's greenhouse, which provides insight into how much she "actually worked" and how much she was actually "on show". My mother would not blink an eye at paying $300 for a swimming suit (all two piece bikini types) and she probably owned well over a dozen even when she was 60. My mother was a clothes horse, and money was no obsticle when it came to her clothes. I have as much interest in clothes as my mother used to have regarding my own private library of books. There are times I used to laugh and in the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., "I think the stork delivered me to the wrong house".

We practice conscious forgetting by refusing to summon up the fiery material, we refuse to recollect. To forget is an active, not a passive endeavor. It means to not haul up certain materials, or turn them over and over, to not work oneself up by repetitive thought, picture, or emotion.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I do believe that I need to practice "conscious forgetting" and move on to that which brings me to a place of serenity and peace. The mind is such a machine, how it can bring into conscious thought memories of so long long ago, which until some stimuli were so far from the surface of the consciousness. My Mother died in 2004 at the age of 78. I am a 55 year old woman, yet, the wounds of childhood seemed so quickly to surface once again.

What were you worrying about 10 years ago?

2005-10-03T07:43:00.000-05:00

If I would ask myself the question, "What was I worrying about a year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, etc., the answer no doubt could always be "money".... hum, there is a pattern going on!!

Sometimes I just chuckle at the human animal that presumes we are at the height of evolution on this planet. There is the dualistic problem of both our "physical nature" and our "psychical/mental nature". Christians claim expertise upon the subject area of being "born again" ... however, when they are spiritually reborn is their mental body ALSO reborn or do they just drag the old one along?

It is IGNORANCE that enables people to talk about being spiritually reborn, when they have yet to even perceive their mental body, let alone the finer spiritual body! Our physical brain has such expertise in making and rendering judgments ... that is why we are the apex predator upon a planet. The brain is comparable to the software of our mental body that enables the mental to be manifested within the physical realm. The physical and mental dimensions are so coarse in comparison to the finer spiritual and even finer divine dimensions of this miraculous Universe!

It is my personal opinion that people who have yet to perceive their own mental body, yet run around claiming they are spiritually "re-born", find comparison to small children "playing dress-up and make-believe" pretending they are adults.

ARENA OF CONSCIOUSNESS

You can compare your arena of consciousness to your home wherein thoughts are the visitors that can come and go. You can invite thoughts that enter your arena of conscious to stay or tell them to leave. Too frequently there are "thought visitors" that come in and we invite them to stay and get comfortable when in fact they are mental visitors we should kick out immediately on their butts!

2005-10-02T17:39:00.000-05:00

I was asked by a woman about my age (55), "What do you do on the internet?, I only check my email". It seemed like someone asking me, "What do you do in a library, I only go to the local newspaper section".

Curiosity
cuÂ·riÂ·osÂ·iÂ·ty (kyʊr'ē-ŏs'ĭ-tē)
n., pl. -ties.
A desire to know or learn

Being curious comes in all forms. Seeking out gossip is one form of curiosity as is attempting to discover the best search engine to accomplish a specialized task. Etymologylogy is one of my interest developed from curiosity as to the inner nature of our spoken word/symbols, finding etymologicalical dictionaries on the internet makes me so pleased. For example:

Etymology

The word "gossip" originates from god-sib, the godparent of one's child or parent of one's godchildren ("god-sibling"), referring to a relationship of close friendship. The Oxford English Dictionary traces the usage of godsib back as far as 1014.

One story (probably apocryphal) tells how, at the beginning of the 20th century, politicians would send assistants to bars to sit and listen to general public conversations. The assistants had instructions to sip a beer and listen to opinions; they responded to the command to "go sip", which allegedly turned into "gossip".

2005-10-01T08:18:00.000-05:00

This morning is alot warmer than yesterday's 34 degrees at this time ... today it is 61 ... yet, Yoshi is once again tunneled into the feather comforter on the couch sleeping. She gets up with me, but when I pour my first cup of coffee to sit down at the computer she is beginning to tunnel in to go back to sleep.

Was thinking about going to the Lake with Bruce and Melody today about 4pm, but have changed my mind. I am not into spending time in an uncomfortable situation where it seems I am counting the minutes until we get back into the car to leave.

I have frequently stated that "guilt is not from God, but rather is self-punishment". From Answers.com:

GUILT, in psychology, a term denoting an unpleasant feeling associated with unfulfilled wishes. Sigmund Freud initially contended that sexual drives produce sense of guilt in the superego, the moral conscience of the mind. He later maintained, however, that guilt was associated with aggressive impulses. Freud felt that guilt was often confused with remorse, the former being an emotion signaling the presence of aggressive wishes, the latter a self-imposed punishment which occurs if the aggressive wish is fulfilled. Individuals suffering from various neurotic disorders may experience feelings of guilt and remorse even when they have not acted on their aggressive impulses. The term guilt is most commonly used in traditional psychoanalysis, as a way of describing unconscious processes which may lead to neurotic reactions. It is also used in criminal law, in cases where a defendant is found to be responsible for the crime for which he is on trial.

I suppose it is hard to feel like the "perfect daughter" when I do not have a "perfect dad". I feel guilty because I don't want to go see my dad, and I am sure he does not feel guilty about the way he criticizes and puts down my whole life and every aspect of it.

A Friday in the FALL at 73 degrees at noon

2005-09-30T12:08:00.000-05:00

Been working on this Coffee Notes site to get it to look the right way in an Internet Explorer browser. Using Firefox, I frequently forget to check out my sites in another browser window. I think I've got the centering problem taken care of. I sure recommend:

NVU's webpage says:

"A complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver.
Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a "new view") makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML."

At any rate, it is cool how it can open web pages, etc. Highly recommend it to anyone who likes to play around with their sites.

Is this cool or what!

2005-09-29T22:50:00.000-05:00

I just figured out some cool html code ... took a bit but was fun:

Open bunik.blogspot.com (My Cave Blog) in a new window

Thought I would see how it would publish on one of my blogs.

I also found out how crappy this site looks on Internet Explorer, I use Firefox ... will have to do some tweeking.

2005-09-29T10:21:00.000-05:00

It was 34 degrees when I woke up this morning. That is known as a hard frost! I even had to find some socks to put on ... am going to have to take my long-johns out of storage. Yoshi is more of a feather comforter dog, than a sled dog. I try to suck some heat off of her, and she tries to suck it off of me ... we're pathetic whimps this morning.

As I'm trying to figure out what happened to September, I'm also trying to figure out what happened to this week ... it's THURSDAY already. I remember when I used to wish the week would hurry up and end, what's happened to me?

Have been having fun setting up my "Blogspot" look-alike website to replace my hosted site that once existed as lindabunik.com until last night when I cancelled the hosting and it disappeared from cyberspace within a few minutes of my clicking the "cancel" button.

Yuppies want their own domains on the internet ... personally, I don't cut it as a yuppy, never have and probably never will. Like I've said before, Google owns Blogspot Blogger and they make the big bucks, so I doubt if they will be going under soon.

The only event I have on my tenative (and very tenative at that) schedule is to go to the Dollar Store and to also pick up some milk. I am intending to finally get my window air conditioner out ... however, than is also in the tenative category.

In our own worlds ....

2005-09-28T06:58:00.000-05:00

My eyes once again popped open TOO early ... just about 4am. It is said that the older you get the less sleep you need. Actually it may be that the older you get the more you realize how much closer you are to the proverbial "eternal sleep" and you really don't want to miss out on too much of this life by sleeping.

The thought "Everyone lives in their own little world" keeps dancing through my head this morning. My profound thought being "Are we really a part of another's world ... or in reality ... are we just two worlds that bump into each other". A part of is a concept much different than two different. Perhaps this thought has to do with the empty nest syndrome belonging to mothers. When children live in the home versus when they leave and have their own homes.

Definition of Empty Nest Syndrome from "Psychology Today" website:
Empty Nest Syndrome refers to feelings of depression, sadness, and/or grief experienced by parents and caregivers after children come of age and leave their childhood homes. This may occur when children go to college or get married. Women are more likely than men to be affected; often, when the nest is emptying, mothers are going through other significant life events as well, such as menopause or caring for elderly parents.

More mothers work these days and therefore feel less emptiness when their children leave home. Also, an increasing number of adult children between 25 and 34 are now living at home. Psychologist Allan Scheinberg notes that these "boomerang kids" want the "limited responsibility of childhood and the privileges of adulthood." Children may also return home due to economics, divorce, extended education, drug or alcohol problems or temporary transitions.

I just had a chuckle, I had never really heard the expression "boomerang kids" before this morning.

Perhaps what is on my mind this morning regarding "everyone is in their own little world", might have to do with maybe Josie's new home and I'm restructuring my own life as a result? It is as if a sense of pressure is lifted when I think that thought.

It smells like a fall morning

2005-09-27T09:17:00.000-05:00

Evidently the lowering of humidity in the air and the cooler temps give fall mornings that distinctive type of feel or maybe all the memories of childhood when one began to get up early for school deepened the sensual memories connected to autumn. Autumn would be my favorite time of the year if it wasn't the door that brings in winter. In Nebraska, sometimes there may only be a month of truly autumn weather before the first snow which can begin to fall and accummulate in late October. The memory of the Halloween snow storm wherein Halloween was "called off" popped into my consciousness. That was maybe in 1988 or 1989?

After I awakened this morning, made my coffee and realized I hadn't feed Nemo my Betta fish last night, filled the Cheerios bowl for my bunnies who were underfoot impatiently waiting for their morning bowl of cereal (minus the milk and sugar), I sat down with my first cup of coffee of this day and saw my camera and was reminded of the pictures from both Corisa and Pauls visit to my home and the photos from last night at Bruce and Melody's that require my attention. Of course, by this time Yoshi had burrowed into the feather comforter on the couch having decided the crisp cool morning air was not something she was ready to yet encounter - plus, her play-day with Lady last night really wore her out.

The batteries in my camera do not last very long and I should have put fresh ones in before I went over for the play-date last night. Some of the pics I downloaded from my camera were completely black and required my real editing to see what the photo was about. They will not get any prizes, but here are some that I took at Bruce and Melody's last night:

Lady and Yoshi play their game of grabbing toys from each other

Lady can be seen in this photo almost blending in with Jeb's jeans ...
Jeb functioned as a fetch machine during Yoshi and Lady's playdate

This is photo when both Yoshi and Lady saw me trying to take their picture
and immediately came running straight towards me ... "poising for pictures"
is not in their characters it seems

Lady, the cocker spaniel and Yoshi the rat terrier are like constant motion when they are together. Jeb and Bruce were able to watch the Broncos beat Kansas City ... so they had their own little "play-date", too. Melody and Bruce fixed a wonderful ham dinner, so a good time was had by all last night.

To view more pictures from last night visit my News Module or my "Look-A-Like Blogspot News Module".

Monday Morning ... Tonight Yoshi has a play date with Lady

2005-09-26T08:54:00.000-05:00

I am definitely going have to remember to take my camera over to Bruce and Melody's tonight when Yoshi goes to play with Lady about 6pm. I keep forgetting it.

I have been over the past few weeks contemplating getting rid of the hosting for my domain name of lindabunik.com. I have been generating "look-alike" modules for my Front Page, Coffee Notes, News Module and Surfing Journal on Blogspot.com. They enable free hosting for your pictures and I doubt if Google is going to go under any time soon. My pictures stored on my current lindabunik.com stay stored there as long as I make my monthly payments for hosting rent for my domain name. One month's rent not paid and zap all my stuff will be completely lost and I will have to start completely all over.

If I would be a yuppy and materialistic, the monthly hosting charge would not be an issue. But then, I would probably hire someone to design my website. Given I continue to hold no personal desire to be a yuppy (and I enjoy playing around with websites SO MUCH) there is this on-going tension about whether I will get my hosting rent paid each month.

My only real on-going visitors to my lindabunik.com are my children. Since I have a website for essentially my own entertainment given the lack of real traffic there, I am preparing to dump the hosting. Having on-going tension over hosting payments for supposedly having something for my own entertainment is FRAGMENTED behavior on my part.

Even if I didn't pay the year "rent" for my domain name lindabunik.com ... who in the heck would want to buy that domain name other than me??

When I dump the hosting site, the free page will enable me to you to my NEW tension-free website.

Click on the links below to visit my "look-alike" modules that I've been generating:

Front Page (Linda's Website)

Coffee Notes

News Module

Surfing Journal

2005-09-24T07:33:00.000-05:00

I am the one that tells other to "seek the higher meaning" of those "people, places and situations" in your life that cause you maybe irritation, suffering, etc. There are pain receptors in the physical body that act to alarm us to threats, i.e., a hot stove. If I am experiencing irritation at discovering a flat tire on my car, do I get stuck in just being irritated or do I realize that I have a chance to glean some lessons given to me by this most miraculous universe?

Having two flat tires in a time span of less than a month definitely pushes my usually high patience level, especially since my current flat tire is one of the tires that was just recently put on the front of my car. I am such a recluse. I discovered my flat tire yesterday, Friday, and I had not driven my car since Monday night.

My "gut feeling" yesterday when discovering another flat, and the flat being one of my new tires was to suspect a person who lives across the alley from me. This is a woman that I have known since my move to Lincoln in 1993. In 1997, I wiped my feet of any association with her, or so I thought. She moved into an apartment building across the alley over a year ago and it was just about a month ago (before my 1st flat tire) that she watched me park my car and I do believe for the first time figured out "which car was mine". She may aptly be described as "more than a mooch". She lost her drivers license and does not have her own car. I honestly believe that she truly thinks that anyone who has a car thereby has the duty to provide her rides whenever and wherever she wants to go. If fact, she has demonstrated to me long ago that she expects other people to serve only as "servants" to her - and I am not exaggerating!

I have not spoken to this woman for years. I just have this gut feeling that she experiences anger at the fact I have car and she knows full well that there is no way in hell I am going to function as another one of "taxi drivers".

If I am just being paranoid about my flat tires, so be it. If I am picking up something in tires in the alley (this is a heavily traveled alley - so I kinda doubt it) I will solve the flat tire problems with just parking out on the street in front of my building. It will be further for me to carrying in groceries, however, I can use the exercise. Maybe the universe is telling me to change my usual habits ... who knows, a woman getting in and other of her car at night would probably be safer doing it out on a main street in contrast to a dark alley.

2005-09-23T07:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I get such a chuckle every morning by filling up my little critter's "Cheerio bowl". I do believe that if I have an extra supply of "oats" during some crisis and I can't get to the store ... all my guys and myself would not starve. Maybe Spike my hedgehog and Nemo the Betta fish wouldn't be too happy??

Well summer went out in a heat wave with record setting temps hitting the 100 degree mark. Now the temps are quite seasonable and am contemplating taking my air conditioner out of the window and being able to once again open it up and let the fresh air in. At least, it is not very heavy.

Been watching the hurricane news on either CNN or Fox. I could see me in the evacuation traffic jam with my little car who likes to overheat. Makes me realize I should carry a gallon of water around with me just in case. But then, I can see it freezing pretty soon and having to build a fire to thaw out my water jug ... then, maybe I should also carry around some firewood in my car ... reminds me of when I used to camp all the time and always had firewood (vs. firewater) in my trunk. Memories...

Yoshi is once again this morning snuggled up in the feather comforter on the couch. It is still to early for her tastes ... plus she needs to get plenty of sleep so she can be a big pain in the "" today with all her puppy energy. Yesterday I told her she had "puppy attention deficit disorder" meaning she constantly needed more attention from me.

New pictures from this morning:

You can see Yoshi peeking out from the comforter
with her head on one of her favorite toys

Yoshi with her most-loved "snake" toy

2005-09-22T08:32:00.000-05:00

For now over a decade, the Autumn Equinox has always been my favorite "seasonal event". I recall taking the "day of" from work or way back when I was in college in the late 1980's to spend time in my own solitary contemplation on this day. I created my own "special day of the year".

The autumn equinox represents to me the time for "harvesting the crop" that was planted in the spring. The crop that I would harvest would be those ideas, goals, efforts that I had invested time and energy focused upon nurturing.

Reviewing the "where I have been, where I am at, and where do I want to go" that I had been currently addressing. The idea of "where I have been" has always been an "idea" that deserves "harvesting". Too frequently, it is much simpler to just stuff what has happened over the past year in some archive in your memory. Personally, there is SO MUCH TO GLEAN or HARVEST in the form of personal wisdom ... whether it just be "what I don't want to do again".

Maybe this personal "custom" of mine originated when I was studying Judaism way back in the middle 1980's. The Day of Atonement (Yon Kippur) usually come around the time of the Autumn Equinox. This year it is being celebrated (Jewish Year 5766) beginning at sunset October 12, 2005 and ending nightfall October 13, 2005.

It is customary in Judaism to wear white on Yon Kippur, which symbolizes purity and calls to mind the promise that sins shall be made as "white as snow".

I have always felt that so many Christians talk about "having their sins forgiven" yet take so little time bringing to mind all the manners ... in both MIND and BODY ... that they have sinned. The Autumn Equinox is maybe my day to reflect upon not only the positive direction that I have chosen to take my time in body, but also the negative directions that I have allowed myself to take.

The Christ taught that "to hate" is to commit "murder" and it is crucial to me to examine not only my "external" behavior but also the "unseen" internal activities of my mind.

Anger, resentment and hatred (is likened by me) to an interstate highway and an easy route to travel upon. The "narrow path" is a path that will be unlike an interstate highway and you will probably find few travelers ... it is termed a "path" not a highway for a reason.

The Autumn Equinox is a day in time that I attempt to perceive whether I am on the path, or whether I am once again out there on the main highway system paved with self-absorption, self-centerness, envy, resentments, etc.